by Simon Lister
‘When you told me to,’ Arthur repeated coldly.
‘When I said we should pull back from the Gates,’ Gereint said correcting himself.
‘And you think your brother would be alive now if we had?’
‘Yes,’ Gereint said, turning to face Arthur directly.
‘No. He would still be dead. You would be dead. I’d be dead and so would everyone else. But more than this Britain would be dead. We’d have been out on the flats before the Uathach arrived and caught between two Adren forces and there Britain would have died.’
‘You didn’t even know the Uathach were coming or about the Adren behind us when I said to pull back! You were just too blood-thirsty and too bloody-minded to retreat!’
‘But the Adren were behind us and the Uathach did come. Many of our warriors died on the Causeway but Britain didn’t.’
‘Not yet.’
‘So this is the Mercian way, is it? This is what makes a Mercian Warlord.’
‘What?’
‘Surrender. Giving up when your own blood is spilt. Finding someone or something to blame instead of seeking retribution.’
Gereint’s anger threatened to break and it was all he could do to restrain himself from striking at Arthur. Arthur just stared at him.
‘You don’t blame me. You don’t even blame the Adren. You blame yourself for Glore’s death and you shouldn’t. He was a warrior and warriors die. Britain must not.’ Arthur turned away and left Gereint standing in the icy rain.
*
The last of the winter showers scurried westwards leaving the bright sun to inch higher in a clear blue sky. The first real warmth of the coming summer spread across the land and the warriors at the copse relaxed in the shade of the trees or lounged on the grassy slopes as they waited for word from the Uathach who were holding the cliffs against the Adren.
Three days after arriving at the camp above the Winter Wood Arthur sent out mounted patrols to the East to look for the returning Uathach. He feared they had been drawn into a full-blown battle against the Adren. He had expressly told Gwyna and Ruraidh that such a battle could only be lost and to avoid it at all costs but he was not there to order them when to abandon the cliffs and he paced the camp irritable and frustrated.
He had also expected the Cithol to have made contact with them by now. Both Seren and Terrill knew to keep a watch on the copse and Arthur was disturbed that not even a message had been sent to him.
When the patrols returned and there was still no news from either the Cithol or Uathach Arthur decided to ride east along the Westway until he came across either the Uathach or the Adren. He took Morgund and Morveren with him and left Ceinwen at the camp in case Seren or Terrill finally made contact. He had only been gone for four hours when a Cithol messenger emerged from the Winter Wood but Ceinwen could tell straight away that it was neither Terrill nor Seren who laboured up the steep hill.
The other warriors kept their distance but watched with curiosity as Ceinwen met the hooded Cithol. Even those who had previously kept alive the hope that the Cithol would send a force to help them had now given up any such expectations and they wondered what message the Cithol could have for Arthur.
Ceinwen led the messenger into the shade of one of the shelters and offered him food. The offer was declined and the Cithol kept his hood close about his face. Ceinwen sat opposite him and waited quietly for him to begin. The silence stretched to awkwardness and Ceinwen finally broke it. ‘You have a message from Lord Venning to Arthur?’
The Cithol tilted his head slightly as if to hear better and Ceinwen realised that he probably had not understood her. She knew they spoke the same language but this was probably the first time the Cithol opposite her had spoken to anyone outside the city and she realised that her inability to move her jaw properly was hindering the process further. She held up a hand to indicate the Cithol should stay where he was and went to fetch Balor. She explained to him what she thought the problem was and they both returned to the waiting Cithol.
‘What do you want then?’ Balor asked and Ceinwen groaned quietly.
‘Are you Arthur?’
Balor laughed and Ceinwen shook her head.
‘I’m sorry.’ The Cithol clasped his hands in front of him before continuing, ‘You look much the same to us.’
Balor snorted derisively, ‘He’s about a foot and half taller – with hair. Not much the same if you ask me.’
‘I meant no offence,’ the Cithol said bowing his head.
‘There is none taken,’ Ceinwen enunciated carefully. She was wondering what had possessed her to choose Balor as a spokesman instead of Hengest or Gereint. Balor was looking at the Cithol’s pale skinned hands and Ceinwen could see what he was about to say next so she quickly put a hand on his knee to silence him.
The Cithol noted the gesture and introduced himself, ‘My name is Vosper. I am one of the Cithol and I come from the Veiled City.’
‘Do you, by gods?’ Balor asked sourly before Ceinwen could stop him.
‘Yes,’ the Cithol replied, either missing or ignoring Balor’s scornful sarcasm.
‘I’m Ceinwen and this is Balor. You have a message for Arthur from Lord Venning?’
‘Yes and no.’
Balor snorted again and the Cithol turned to him, ‘Yes; the message is for Arthur, but no; it is not from Lord Venning.’
‘We’re Arthur’s, er, captains,’ Ceinwen said for want of a better explanation.
‘Yes, I have heard of you Ceinwen,’ Vosper replied, then looked with studied silence at Balor who actually bristled with indignation.
‘Is the message from Fin Seren?’ Ceinwen asked desperately trying to keep the exchange on track.
‘The message is from Captain Terrill. No one has spoken to or seen Seren. She is being held in the Palace as is Captain Terrill but he managed to get word to me to watch this place.’
‘Why are they being held?’
‘I am not on the council,’ Vosper replied.
Ceinwen did not know if that meant he was unable to tell them or whether he was unwilling to tell them but clearly all was not as it should be in the Veiled City.
‘What’s the message then?’ Balor asked bluntly.
‘Is Arthur not here?’
‘No. He’s riding back to the Causeway,’ Ceinwen explained.
‘Does he still hold the Causeway against the Adren?’
‘The Causeway fell a few days ago. The Uathach are now holding the cliffs.’
‘Then the Adren will be here before long,’ Vosper concluded.
‘Ready to fight yet?’ Balor’s tone had lost none of its former antagonism.
‘Yes.’
Ceinwen and Balor exchanged surprised glances at the Cithol’s reply.
‘You’re going to need to be because there’s thousands of the bastards,’ Balor said but the wind had been taken from his sails.
‘Terrill’s message?’ Ceinwen prompted.
‘Many of us disagree with the council’s decision not to have joined you in the battle for the Causeway even though we would have been of little use to you. Many of us agreed with Captain Terrill that we should have done more. He told me to gather together those that knew the Winter Wood and who felt the same as us. They are waiting below on the edge of the wood.’
‘How many?’ Balor asked.
‘Fifty.’
‘Fifty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hardly an army is it?’
‘We can’t fight as you do. We are not warriors.’
‘Then you’re no bloody good to us are you?’ Balor said in disgust ready to stand up and finish what he felt was a pointless meeting.
‘I disagree. We have our crossbows and we know how to use them but the real benefit to you will be as guides through the Winter Wood. We know all the paths and tunnels while you don’t, and nor does the enemy.’
‘More prancing through woodland! I’m sick of forests, that’s why I joined the Wessex war band – to get away
from the bloody things!’
Vosper stared at Balor uncertainly, ‘I do not understand. Are you unhappy that we want to fight to protect our city?’
Ceinwen turned angrily on Balor and told him to leave them alone. He stood up just as angrily and abruptly left.
‘I apologise for his attitude,’ Ceinwen said slowly and as clearly she could.
‘Perhaps the wound on his head troubles him?’ Vosper offered.
‘Quite possibly,’ Ceinwen said with a smile, ‘Your offer to act as guides is greatly appreciated. I’m sure Arthur will accept it and be thankful for it. He probably won’t be gone too long. Would you like to stay and wait for him here?’
The Cithol looked around the camp at Ceinwen’s invitation.
‘We can bring you some food,’ Ceinwen offered and that stopped the Cithol’s pretence at decorum immediately. He hastily stood.
‘We will wait on the edge of the wood for Arthur’s return,’ he said and before Ceinwen could stand up he had turned and left the lean-to shelter.
Ceinwen remained where she was and took out another folded packet of powder from a pouch on her belt. Tilting her head back she emptied the packet onto her tongue and closed her eyes against the pain from her jaw and broken teeth. She wondered what was happening in the Veiled City. Seren and Terrill had been at the white cliffs expressly to warn Arthur of the Adren tunnel but why just the two of them and why Seren? Why had they returned to the city without waiting for Arthur and more importantly why were they now being held by Lord Venning? It seemed implied by Vosper’s words that his detachment of fifty Cithol were not wholly acting with Lord Venning’s sanction. She was still trying to make sense of the scant information she had gleaned when Hengest and Gereint approached the shelter and sat down. The powder she had taken was beginning to dull the pain and the last thing she wanted was a prolonged conversation but she saw that she had little choice.
‘What did the Cithol want?’ Hengest asked.
‘He was offering his people’s help as guides in the Winter Wood – and the tunnels.’
‘So they expect us to help defend their homes after they left us to fend for ourselves?’ Hengest asked in disgust. The withdrawal from the Causeway had effectively handed the Adren free access to most of Anglia.
‘Let them defend their own lands. I say we pull back to Caer Cadarn,’ Gereint said.
Ceinwen sighed and took a deep breath before beginning, ‘You know why Cei and Merdynn went east? The Adren have a city something like the Cithol one. Whatever it is, they can produce food throughout the whole year like the Cithol do. It’s why they’re able to support such an army. Cei will destroy the source of that power. We can’t let them replace their loss with the Veiled City. It’s that simple.’
‘Who’s to say they can succeed in the East?’ Hengest asked, quietly thinking of his father, Aelfhelm, who had gone with Cei.
‘They have Merdynn with them,’ Ceinwen pointed out desperate for the debate to end so that she could rest.
‘That’s no guarantee,’ Gereint belligerently replied.
‘Look, even if they don’t succeed we still can’t let them take the Veiled City and double their power.’
‘You saw the Adren numbers from the cliffs, we all did. There’s tens of thousands of them! We can’t stop them with a few hundred warriors!’ Gereint spoke bitterly but he was only saying aloud what many of the warriors had been thinking since the Causeway fell.
‘I’m too tired and my jaw aches too much to argue with you. I suggest you prepare your surrender treaty for the Adren. You may want to put in a clause about how your families and property must be respected by the Adren.’ She stood up and added just before leaving the shelter, ‘I’m sure Arthur will want to look over it before you hand it to the Adren.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes after Ceinwen had gone thinking over what she had said.
‘We can’t surrender and there’s nowhere in Britain where we can hide for long,’ Hengest concluded.
‘Not in Britain, no. But we have the ships to take us west.’ Gereint looked at the ground as he spoke, already half-regretting that he had voiced the thought.
Hengest was quiet for a moment as he considered Gereint’s implied suggestion. He was thinking of Ruadan and the others who had died on the Causeway; to abandon Britain now seemed like a betrayal of those who had already fallen. He looked at Gereint and said quietly, ‘I don’t think you ought to suggest that to Arthur.’
*
Arthur returned to the camp a day later at the head of the Uathach riders. The warriors at the copse gathered to watch them cover the distance from the Westway to the camp. In the chaos on the flats and the hurried departure from the cliffs it had been difficult for the Britons to form an accurate assessment of how many Uathach horsemen there had been but the general consensus on the hill was that they had not lost many in the defence of the cliffs.
Arthur had been concerned that Gwyna may not have had the necessary control over the Uathach warriors to stop them becoming involved in an outright battle with the Adren but his fears had been groundless. The slaying of her father and replacing him as chieftain had been the most convincing way to demonstrate to them her worthiness as their leader in battle. No one else had dared to challenge Ablach in his long years as the leader of their tribe and to them it was only fitting that a son, or daughter, should claim their rights of inheritance in such a manner. As Gwyna pointed out to Arthur on the ride back from the cliffs, it was not so different from his slaying of the southern king, Maldred.
The defence of the white cliffs had gone well. At first the Adren had only sent probing attacks up to the headland as they organised their main forces on the flats. These had been repelled easily as had the more serious attempts that followed. When the Adren finally put their full force to assailing the full width of the cliffs Gwyna quickly realised the inevitability of being outflanked and ordered her warriors to mount up and withdraw.
The Adren seemed to have no desire to give chase and instead began setting up a staging camp where the abandoned Anglian village still stood. Arthur had met Gwyna about halfway between the cliffs and the copse and together they had set up patrols to watch the Adren army and report back on its movements. Arthur had put Morveren in charge of one of these patrols with orders to ride to the copse above the Winter Wood as soon as the Adren army formed up to march onwards into Britain.
When the Uathach horsemen rode into the camp one of the Mercian warriors began a loud chant and soon the hilltop rang to the noise of acclamation as the southern warriors voiced their praise of the Uathach’s charge on the flats. Gwyna’s warriors were surprised to be so welcomed by the Britons but the reception made them feel even prouder of their exploits and in an unexpected way made them feel prouder of the Britons who had stood on the Causeway and held back the Adren for so long. As the Uathach sought food and quarters to sleep in, many of them renewed acquaintances and friendships with the Britons they had first met in the Great Hall at Caer Sulis. If the Britons resented the lateness of the Uathach intervention then none of it showed in that initial meeting.
Arthur looked on with satisfaction; he had known that once they had fought in a battle together their old enmity would rapidly diminish but he was nonetheless relieved to see it actually happen. As he was watching the greetings Ceinwen came up to him and took to him one side to tell him about the visit from Vosper. They went to get something to eat and while Ceinwen mashed some food in a cup she told him what little news the Cithol had to impart to them. Arthur frowned when she mentioned that Seren and Terrill were being held in the Palace but she was unable to elaborate or provide any answers to his questions.
Arthur immediately left Dunraven and descended the hill to the edge of the Winter Wood in search of Vosper and his guides. He had not gone far into the fringes of the wood when he came across them sitting by a fire in a bower of latticed branches. He stood looking at them while they in turn studied him. His clothes were still caked in dr
ied blood and mud from the marsh and he reeked of the battlefield. He was the embodiment of the Cithol view of an outsider; dangerous and barbaric. One of the Cithol stood and took a step closer to the outsider.
‘You are Arthur of the Britons?’
‘Yes. Vosper?’
‘Indeed. Please, join us by the fire.’
Arthur stepped into the circle of the Cithol and looked down at the fire noting with disappointment that there was no food cooking over it. He wondered why they had lit a fire when the day was already warm enough. He took a seat and stretched out his stiff leg.
‘Your offer to act as guides through the woods and tunnels is gratefully accepted. As is your offer to stand alongside us against the Adren. But why do you sit out here in the open woodland? Are you unwelcome in the city?’
There were several nervous looks exchanged at Arthur’s question.
‘Lord Venning is still of the opinion that the Adren may not trouble us here. Like Captain Terrill we do not agree.’
‘Is he still sending supplies and weapons to Caer Sulis?’
‘I believe the last shipment left a few days ago.’
‘The last?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps the council think they can stay hidden from the Adren?’
‘What of Seren and Terrill?’
‘Lord Venning is holding them at his Palace but again, I don’t know why. Perhaps they strongly disagree with his decisions and he’s concerned they may incite some unrest by openly questioning the council’s stance. That certainly seems to be the case with Captain Terrill as he was the one who got word to us to meet you and offer our assistance.’
Arthur stood up and said, ‘Then let’s go and find out exactly whose side Lord Venning is on; the Cithol’s or the Adren’s.’
Vosper stood up quickly and held out a hand, ‘Commander Kane has ordered the Guard to shoot any outsiders seen in the Veiled City. You can’t go into the city.’
‘Kane would order Britons to be killed?’ Arthur’s voice was level and his tone reasonable but Vosper and the others knew instinctively that the unpredictable barbarian before them was suddenly very dangerous.
