by Simon Lister
Seren nodded in silence unable to bring herself to mention Gwyna again. She had not seen her among the warriors when they had entered Caer Cadarn but she knew that this was Gwyna’s place and time and not hers. She looked around the darkened room thinking that this was Gwyna’s room too and she glanced involuntarily at the bed. She saw that Arthur had followed her gaze but his face betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. With a feeling of utter emptiness she asked, ‘When do you want me to leave?’
‘I don’t want you to leave. I need you to leave. We each have to do what we must, not what we wish.’
‘Must I go immediately?’
‘When you’ve had food and rested,’ he replied and they both stood up. He took a step towards her and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to embrace her but he reached beyond her and opened the door onto the main hall. She stopped in the doorway and looked into his face wondering if they would ever be alone again. There was still so much left unsaid, so many questions she needed answering and yet somehow none of it seemed relevant any longer.
As she walked out into the hall she heard him quietly say, ‘Look after our child, Seren, keep her safe.’
The other Cithol were already seated at one of the long tables with various foods laid out before them. Few seemed to be eating and she went and sat by Terrill. She had no appetite for food either.
*
The Cithol left for the Haven several hours later after they had rested and once again sat and stared for long minutes at the food the Britons had provided for them. Arthur sent a small escort with them to make sure they were quartered safely at the Haven. He suggested to the guard that they stay at the harbour master’s house as it was large enough to house the Cithol group and far enough from most of the villagers and any potential confrontations.
Arthur said no further farewells to Seren but in the bright sunshine he watched until her wain had disappeared from view on its way to the Westway where it would join all the other Briton and Uathach refugees on their journeys to the Haven.
He returned to his vigil on the wall and while many had noted his meeting with Seren none of them questioned him about it and few even mentioned it among themselves. Ceinwen and Elwyn thought they were the only ones who knew that the child Seren carried was Arthur’s but Ruraidh of the Uathach also knew and he had watched with interest when Arthur took her from the cart and led her into the hall.
As the days passed the Uathach warriors began to give up hope for Gwyna’s band and they naturally accepted Ruraidh as their leader in her prolonged absence. The common assumption was that they must have been unable to escape from one of the Adren ambushes; most of them were still counting their good fortune at their own escapes.
When the first returning patrol was spotted on the road to Caer Cadarn word quickly spread that Gwyna and Morveren were with them and both the Uathach and Wessex warriors gathered at the gate to welcome back two more they thought they had lost.
It was Morgund’s patrol and he rode into Caer Cadarn laughing with Morveren who rode between him and a grinning Balor. Gwyna was just behind them with the other warriors but her face was grim and still carried the bruised weal from the sword blow that had stunned her. Once through the gates, they were met by their respective groups, and while the Wessex were jubilant at Morveren’s return, the Uathach greeted Gwyna in a far more subdued manner; relief at her safety being overridden by the certainty that her warriors were dead.
Ceinwen was the first to greet Morveren as she awkwardly dismounted and she held out a hand to steady the younger woman as she landed heavily on her feet.
‘Are you injured?’
‘Just a cut on my side,’ Morveren answered, gesturing to the bandages under her tunic.
‘Let me take a look at that,’ Ceinwen replied automatically then grinned at her, ‘Thought you’d got yourself lost in the woods!’
‘Lost? You lot abandoned me and left me for dead!’
Morgund winced at the tone that suggested more than a trace of genuine reproach but Ceinwen shrugged it aside with a laugh and said, ‘You should have listened to your brothers and married a farmer - and stayed out of the woods!’
‘You should stay out of woods, that’s a fact. And avoid horses too come to that,’ Balor added, rubbing his saddle-sore behind and looking around for something to drink.
‘Better let me take a look at that cut.’
‘I think our warlord wants a word first,’ Morveren replied, nodding to Arthur who was standing at the doors to the main hall and watching them impatiently.
Gwyna seemed to have got the same message and they made their way to the hall. Arthur stood aside and as they went inside he called out for Morgund who looked wistfully at the mugs of beer that Balor was carrying before turning to the hall.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll see it goes to a good home!’ Balor called after him.
Morgund need not have worried as there was a flagon of beer waiting for them on the table at the top of the hall and he poured himself a drink before passing it on to the others. He drank it gratefully, glad to be out of the sun and enjoying the coolness inside the hall.
The wooden shutters were propped open down both sides of the long hall and the sounds of Caer Cadarn mingled reassuringly with the familiar smells of wood smoke and cooking. He looked across the table at Morveren and smiled, just glad to be alive and glad to be home. Somewhere just below his conscious thoughts he knew that neither were likely to remain true but it only seemed to heighten the simple pleasure he took in being where he was and he recalled the typically erudite Anglian saying; ‘summer brings heat and winter the snow’ - what would happen would happen, but for now he could sit in the cool and smile at Morveren when only a few days ago he had thought that he would never be able to do so again.
‘There’s no immediate threat to us from the Adren?’ Arthur asked him.
‘Not immediate, no.’
‘Good.’ Arthur turned his attention to Morveren, ‘What happened?’
Morveren shifted in her chair to ease the ache in her side before replying, ‘I got hit by an arrow in the first moments of the ambush then got bashed on the head. The next thing I remember is waking up with no one around. Except the dead of course. I searched among them and soon realised that most of you must have escaped.’
Arthur asked her who she had seen in the clearing and when she had given him the names of the dead he left them to give the information to a messenger to take on to the Haven where all the warriors’ families were now quartered. The three of them sat in silence waiting for Arthur to return and Morgund puzzled over Gwyna’s attitude. She had been completely withdrawn from the first moment the patrol had come across them and he had initially put her reticence down to the loss of the warriors under her command but during the journey to Caer Cadarn he had noticed how she avoided even looking at Morveren. He looked at them both now and although they were sitting side by side there was a wide gulf between them.
Arthur came striding back up the hall to the table and poured himself a drink indicating for Morveren to continue.
‘Well, after checking the bodies I tried to head west to where we left the horses but the fires forced me to turn more and more to the North and that’s when I started to come across the trail of the Uathach rearguard.’ She hesitated as Gwyna stiffened beside her but whether it was because she had used the word ‘Uathach’ or whether it was just the recollection of the battle she could not tell so she hurried on to the part of her tale that she had not yet told to Morgund. ‘That’s when I thought I saw Merdynn.’
‘Merdynn?’
‘That’s what I thought, at first. He looked a lot like him, even down to the cloak and staff but then these Cithol warriors appeared out of the smoke and haze and bowed to him.’ She sensed Gwyna recoil again, this time at the mention of the warriors, and once again she hurried on now wanting to finish as quickly as possible and get away from the hall. ‘I can’t describe it but there was something about the old man that
, well, made me afraid.’
Arthur nodded, ‘Lazure Ulan. The Adren Master. Venning told us he commands the Shadow Land City and the Adren armies. Somehow he’s linked to Merdynn but I don’t know how yet. Who were these warriors?’
‘Cithol, definitely, but unlike the Cithol of the Veiled City. These were warriors, very dangerous, much more so than the Adren soldiers.’ Morveren stopped abruptly, hoping that Gwyna would now pick up the tale. She felt Arthur staring at her and she willed Gwyna to start talking. She did.
‘It was those Cithol who finally overcame my warriors. We had fought the Adren in running battles from the first ambush right through the wood until we had made it to the northern fringes. We fought long and hard but they had us surrounded on a hillside. Then this Lazure you speak of arrived with his Cithol warriors. As many of them died as my own warriors but there were too many of them. We fell one by one until I was the only one left.’ For the first time since she started speaking she dropped her eyes from Arthur’s and stared at the drink in front of her.
Arthur knew she was lying and briefly glanced to Morveren who was looking intently at her hands.
‘Gwyna, if these are new warriors to us and they surround Lazure then we need to know the truth about them.’ Arthur spoke quietly but there was no mistaking the command in his tone.
The strength seemed to drain from Gwyna and she replied in a flat voice devoid of emotion. ‘They were Cithol. They each wielded two swords and they numbered the same as my warriors. We were no match for them. They slaughtered us in minutes. Lazure left me alive so I could deliver his message to you.’
Morveren risked a glance at Arthur to see if he realised that Gwyna had omitted her own ordeal and was shocked to see the barely controlled rage on his face.
‘What was his message?’
Gwyna was silent for a moment, a slight frown creasing her forehead as if she were trying to remember exactly what Lazure had said. She blinked and her eyes appeared to glaze over as once again she spoke in that eerie, lifeless tone.
‘The old fool you sent east has failed and his warriors are slain. In return for destroying what was mine in the Cithol City I will destroy this feeble land and every living creature in it. Your people and every trace of their existence shall be wiped clean from the history of this Island. My shadow guard will hunt down you and your warriors and slaughter you just as they slaughtered the Uathach warriors. This is the price of standing against me and this is the price you shall pay.’
Morgund and Morveren listened horrified by her tone; it was as if her will had been taken over by another who was talking through her. They were no less appalled by the message itself. Morgund felt despair wash over him and he was powerless to resist it; Cei and his Anglians dead, Merdynn, who was older than Britain, slain by Lazure. He felt what little hope remained being slowly extinguished and realised now that it was only a matter of time before darkness fell on Britain forever.
Morveren was staring blankly at Gwyna but she was seeing Cei as he cheerily waved them good-bye when he left them in the Shadow Lands. Trevenna, Leah, Cerdic and Ethain all dead. All the others, some she hardly knew, others good friends. It was as if the full effect of all the lost friends had finally sunk home and her chin dropped to her chest. She had been able to bear the loss of those close to her but the loss of hope emptied her soul and the despair she had kept at bay for so long finally overwhelmed her.
Arthur laughed out loud.
‘Empty words from an old man too frail to fight his own battles. He’s nothing but a pale shadow of Merdynn. All he can do is slink from shadow to shadow, whining like a toothless wolf too old to attack anything without his scavenging pack around him. He’s going to destroy Britain is he? Wipe away the history of our peoples? He’ll rue the day he ever heard of Britain. He’ll lament ever seeing the Causeway and our white cliffs. He wants a war of annihilation? Then so be it. We’ll destroy his armies and lay waste to his city and we’ll add that to our history. He will never destroy Britain, never destroy us. All he’ll find here is his own ruin.’
As Arthur mocked him, the hopelessness was plucked from their hearts and the spell of despair was broken.
‘This shadow guard ...’ Morveren began but Morgund interrupted her,
‘We’ll take his shadow guard and shove it up his arse!’ he said, raising his beer and grinning at her.
Only Gwyna remained seated with her head still bowed. Arthur stooped down and lifted her onto her feet and turned to Morveren, ‘Get a sleeping draught from Ceinwen for her, she’s been through too much. And Morgund, bring in Hengest, Gereint and the captains to hear your report.’
He half-carried the unresisting girl to his quarters and laid her on the bed. Morveren came in some minutes later with some leaf-wrapped powders and Arthur emptied them into a drink which he handed to Gwyna. When she had drunk it they left the small room and Arthur turned to Morveren.
‘Was there anything else you wanted to say about your escape before I hear Morgund’s report?’
Morveren looked up at Arthur wishing she could lie to him.
‘Yes. Yes, there is...’
‘Good. I know what happened. Lazure used Gwyna to deliver more than one message and there was nothing you could have done to stop him. I wanted to give you the chance to tell me. Now go and get Ceinwen to look at your side.’
Morveren left feeling a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She passed Morgund in the doorway as he was coming in with the others and she flashed a bright smile at him. Elwyn saw the smile and for a brief second felt a stabbing jealousy before he forced it from his mind as he joined the others gathering around the table.
Arthur indicated for Morgund to start his report and he quickly glanced at those now seated around the table. The two Anglians, Hengest and Elwyn, were opposite him along with Ruraidh of the Uathach. Gereint and his new second-in-command, Dystran, had taken seats to his right and were waiting patiently for him to begin. In contrast to the two Anglians, who were both in their mid to late twenties, the Mercian commanders were a good twenty years older and they both looked it. Dystran was of the same height and build as Morgund both being broad across the shoulders and standing at over six-feet but whereas Morgund shaved his head Dystran’s hair had receded to the point of baldness. As if to compensate for this he had a series of interlinked tattoos stretching from his forehead to the back of his neck, which matched the tattoos that covered his arms, and despite his ready smile he looked to Morgund like a man not to cross lightly. He had one of those granite faces, Morgund thought, that looked like punching it would only hurt your hand. In fact, he looked like a man not to cross at all. Morgund had heard someone say that he came from the valleys in West Mercia and that explained the tattoos which were more or less an obligatory custom in that part of the country. It also explained why you felt like he was looking for a fight even when he was smiling at you.
Taking his eyes away from Dystran’s tattoos Morgund cleared his throat and started, ‘First of all we saw no sign of the Adren anywhere west of the Winter Wood. One of the other patrols we met up with said they weren’t southward either. We pushed right through the Winter Wood following the course of the Isis until we saw their camp just beyond the eastern edge of the woodland. Obviously we couldn’t get too close but it seems they’re set to stay there for a while.’
‘Which side of the river are they?’ Gereint asked.
‘South. But the odd thing was that they had built a bridge, supported by rafts, across to the North side. At the time we had no idea why. We were on the North bank ourselves so we doubled back and swam our horses across. Nearly lost Balor doing that – he’s useless on a horse.’
The others chuckled at the thought of Balor on horseback in the water. Aelfric, who had been standing close by the whole time, took the opportunity to bring across the food he had been asked to serve. Once he had put the plates on the table he returned to the nearby fire and pretended to look busy. Out of the corner of his eye he watched
the warlords and listened to every word they said.
As they helped themselves to the food Morgund continued, ‘We skirted the camp as best as we could trying to get some idea of their numbers and what they were up to. It seemed that most of their supplies had been brought up from the cliffs above the Causeway to this new camp. After watching the camp for a day we rode in a loop down to the Causeway and sure enough, there’s only about a hundred stationed there now.
‘What we couldn’t understand was why there only seemed to be about ten thousand of them in the new camp. Now, we know they lost thousands crossing the Causeway and possibly thousands more in the destruction of the Veiled City but that would still leave half their force unaccounted for. So we went back to the camp on the edge of the Winter Wood and tried to get a more accurate count but each of us came up with more or less the same number. There were over ten thousand Adren missing.’
‘Would they have gone back east?’ Hengest asked.
‘That’s what Balor thought.’
‘North! They’ve gone north!’ Ruraidh said, slamming his hands down on the table.
‘We came to the same conclusion and it explained why they had built the bridge. So we crossed the Isis upstream and rode north looking for them. We found them after a day’s hard riding then we made straight for Caer Cadarn.’
‘Have your people all left for the Haven yet?’ Gereint asked Ruraidh.
‘Most have. Some wouldn’t have. Gods, they’ll be slaughtered, Arthur, we must ride to help them!’
‘They were given the same warning that the Anglians, Mercians and Wessex were given: make for the Haven. They were told to evacuate because we couldn’t guarantee their safety,’ Arthur replied.
‘We rode to your help!’ Ruraidh crashed his fist down on the table as he spoke.
‘And we’ve given your people sanctuary! It was more than we could do for Eald and Branque and the Belgae. Once we’ve destroyed the enemy all our peoples can go back to their homes.’
