A Long Cloud (The Lion of Wales Book 4)

by Sarah Woodbury

  Beorhtsige made a dismissive motion with his head, as if shaking off Edgar’s accusations. “That wasn’t me or these men. We weren’t even at Buellt last night. I too had my own mission for Modred, and we have done well.” Beorhtsige’s confidence reasserted itself.

  “Have you? How?”

  “From your misplaced ire, I see you were aware that we were sent to track King Arthur, but our task was not to meet him at the church. Modred never believed he would go and, as always, our lord was right. King Arthur didn’t.” Beorhtsige drew Edgar’s attention to his men, most of whom had remained mounted and still wore wide smiles, despite their leader’s dressing down by Edgar. Several shifted aside to reveal, in the center of the company, a man with a cloth bag over his head and his hands tied at the wrists. “Show him.”

  One of Beorhtsige’s men ripped the bag from the man’s head, revealing him to be King Arthur himself.

  Nell couldn’t suppress the reflexive gasp, and her gesture drew the king’s attention. To her astonishment, as he caught her eye, he winked.

  Bloody and beaten he might be, but even in captivity, the Lion of Wales remained unbowed.

  Chapter Three

  12 December 537

  Myrddin

  Leaving Geraint to make sure Gareth wasn’t bleeding from any place he didn’t know about, Myrddin went to the back of the tent. The intruders had slashed through the cloth, and three more of King Arthur’s guard lay on the ground outside, all dead, all with arrows sticking out of their chests. The king had been well guarded, but his men had been surprised in a way they should not have been.

  He came back inside the tent, feeling sick inside rather than vindicated that his vision had been proven true. “Is anyone missing among the fallen that you can see?”

  “What do you mean missing?” Geraint said. “We’ve lost a dozen men!”

  “Yes, I know, but that wasn’t what I was asking.” Myrddin tried to speak with patience since it seemed Geraint’s mind wasn’t working as quickly as it usually did. “Whose body should be here but isn’t? Who was here when you left and no longer is? Who is the traitor?”

  “I-I don’t know.” Geraint went to the entrance to the tent and looked out. “Caradoc, maybe. He isn’t among those who lie here.”

  “Nor among those at the back,” Myrddin said.

  A voice hailed them from beyond what Myrddin could see from inside the tent, and Geraint responded, striding through the opening. Myrddin followed after him. Three men had come up the hill at a run, two newcomers and the wounded soldier, a man named Rhys, who had blood seeping from a wound just above the temple. He indicated the two men he’d brought. “I found them some yards from the ford and hoped they’d do. You told me not to raise a general alarm—”

  Geraint cut him off with a slashing gesture and pointed to two wounded men, who lay in the snow halfway down the hill. “You did as you were bid. See to the others—and yourself!”

  “Yes, my lord,” Rhys said.

  Gareth had also followed Geraint from the tent and spoke as if their conversation of earlier hadn’t been interrupted by the newcomers. “Caradoc has served the king for many years. Longer than I have.”

  Myrddin held his tongue rather than express the derision that statement deserved. According to his own testimony, Gareth hadn’t stood with the king very long himself since for months he’d been secretly spying for Modred—a falseness Modred still believed. Myrddin frowned. “Why didn’t Beorhtsige’s men know you, Gareth?”

  “I have never been introduced to Beorhtsige. He might know my name, but he doesn’t know my face.”

  “So Cai wasn’t present the day you defended me to King Arthur?”

  “No. My confession was for the king’s ears alone. And even if Cai did hear of it later, with both him and Agravaine dead, I don’t see how word of my loyalty to Arthur could have reached Modred.”

  “Your life may one day depend on you being correct in this,” Myrddin said.

  Gareth waved his hand, dismissing Myrddin’s concerns, and turned to Geraint. “We have no time to lose as we’re an hour behind already. Myrddin and I can ride after the king. With just the two of us, we can move faster and without drawing suspicion, especially since we both speak Saxon well. Myrddin can ride as my man-at-arms, and if we leave now, we could catch them before nightfall—perhaps even before they leave Wales.”

  “Modred isn’t going to be fooled like he was last time when you escaped Rhuddlan, Myrddin,” Geraint said. “You can’t use Nell’s plan a second time because the king will be guarded by far more men than you were.”

  “We will think of something else,” Gareth said.

  Geraint shook his head. “Someone else should go. Even I would be better, since Modred knows Myrddin’s face.”

  “If we do as I suggest, Myrddin won’t go anywhere near the king—only ensure that I do,” Gareth said. “He’ll be missed here far less than you, Geraint.”

  Geraint’s expression showed skepticism. “Surely you don’t mean for me to hide from our men that King Arthur has been taken?”

  “Surely I do,” Gareth said.

  “What am I to do with the dead men?” Geraint was aghast. “Shall I bury them in secret and say that King Arthur rode north with this company to rally the people to him after his great victory here?”

  “That’s a really good idea,” Gareth said. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

  Geraint was shaking his head vehemently before Gareth had finished speaking. “No, Gareth. You have spent too long amongst the Saxons if you think King Arthur would approve of such a plan.”

  “We have to keep King Arthur’s abduction a secret if the alternative is telling the truth,” Gareth said. “Or, if you feel that you can’t bury these men in secret, leave them among the others who are dead on the battlefield, so that their families can grieve them properly. Nobody is going to question their deaths or wonder who among the king’s guard remains alive.”

  Myrddin didn’t want to lose any more time arguing. Standing between them, he put a hand on each man’s shoulder. “Give us four days, Geraint. If we haven’t located the king by then, it won’t matter what we tell the men, because King Arthur will probably be dead and Modred will be our king despite the victory here.”

  Geraint chewed on his lower lip, his head turned towards Rhys, who was crouched over one of the fallen men and was closing his eyes with a gentle touch. “I will do as you ask if only because I don’t have a better plan, but I wish you weren’t going alone. If you find the king, how are you to send word to me that you’ve found him? And how are you going to free him with only the two of you? You need a company of soldiers.”

  Gareth tsked through his teeth. “I don’t see the benefit of being seen coming a mile away, Geraint, but you’re right about the messenger.”

  Myrddin rubbed his chin. “It may be that being seen doesn’t matter, Gareth. We know where Beorhtsige is taking the king: he’s riding to Modred, who’s at Wroxeter, sixty miles from here.”

  Gareth gave a mocking laugh. “We can’t attack Wroxeter with twenty men.”

  “We can’t attack Wroxeter at all,” Myrddin said. “It’s the most defensible fort in England, and it’s twenty miles from the border. It’s impossible with the army we have, even with weeks or months of preparation.”

  “King Arthur doesn’t have weeks or months, which means I am right, and we are better off going alone. We will rescue the king, or we will die trying.” Gareth’s whole focus was on the mission now. Geraint might as well not have been there. “You get the horses, Myrddin. I will gather provisions from King Arthur’s stores. He won’t be needing them now.”

  “You still don’t understand.” Myrddin caught Gareth’s arm before he could return to the tent. “I’m not suggesting that we take a company of Welshmen. We need Saxons, a company of which we just happen to have to hand!” He pointed down the slope to one of Godric’s men, who had waded into the river some distance from the ford, which was off to the west, i
n order to wash the blood from his hands.

  “I should have thought of that.” Gareth gave a disgusted snort before returning to the tent to gather supplies as he’d suggested.

  Geraint put a hand on Myrddin’s shoulder and shook him. “Go.”

  Myrddin went, loping down the hill towards the Saxon rider, ultimately scrambling down the bank in order to draw the Saxon’s attention.

  The man recognized Myrddin at once. “My lord?” he called across the water.

  “I need Godric and all your men. Now.”

  “Yes, my lord!” the man said, as if the prospect of some new adventure couldn’t have been more welcome, despite being awake all night and having fought a battle at dawn. He hastened away, back up the southern bank towards where Godric’s men had gathered fifty yards from the river.

  Within a quarter of an hour, Myrddin had collected the horses; Gareth had come down the hill with a bag full of provisions; and Geraint, Rhys, and the two guards had started the gruesome work of dragging dead men to lie in rows by the river bank. Getting the bodies across it to lie alongside their fellows wasn’t a task that Myrddin envied, but if anyone could accomplish it with a minimum of fuss, it was Geraint.

  Gareth waved Myrddin to him. “Your plan was better than mine or Geraint’s. I apologize for doubting you.”

  “Your plan would have worked too.” Myrddin held out his forearm to Gareth for him to grip, as he might do to a friend, though a month ago the idea that the two of them could be friends would have been laughable. Gareth grasped Myrddin’s forearm, both men heedless of their blood-stained hands.

  Then the blond Saxon captain arrived from the direction of the ford, flanked by his dozen men, and he dismounted in front of Myrddin. “What do you require of me?”

  In a few succinct sentences, Myrddin told him, and then added at the end, “If we’re planning to go into England, which it seems can’t be avoided if we are to save the king, I need a disguise. Modred would recognize me on sight.”

  “Between all of my men, we should have something that should fit you,” Godric said.

  Myrddin looked up the hill towards the tent and the pole where the Red Dragon of Wales still flew. “We’ll get him back, my lords.”

  “Go now,” Geraint said. “I will see to this.”

  “We’re already gone,” Gareth said.

  Chapter Four

  12 December 537

  Nell

  “Get on your knees, Welsh swine!” Beorhtsige was in his element, and proving—if anyone had ever doubted—that the day the Saxons conquered Wales would be the end of the world as the Welsh knew it.

  Two of his men wrestled Arthur off his horse and pushed him down into the snow. His hands were tied in front of him, so he fell awkwardly on them for a moment before he managed to straighten up. Nell’s heart hurt at the sight of him kneeling before Beorhtsige and looking up at him like a supplicant.

  Beorhtsige shot a smirk in the king’s direction, and then he turned back to Edgar. “We have a quarter of an hour to stock food and water, and then we’ll be off again. Because of the snow, our trail is clearly visible. The Welsh were foolish to have left their king so ill-protected, but they will notice eventually that we’ve stolen him away. We need to get as far away into England as we can under the cover of darkness.”

  “You can take what you need,” Edgar said. “What’s more, I and my men will accompany you to Wroxeter.”

  Beorhtsige’s expression turned fierce. “King Arthur is my prize!”

  “Heaven forbid that I deprive you of the honor of presenting him to Modred.” Edgar’s voice showed mild amusement. “But I have news for our lord too, and if you and your men really weren’t at Buellt last night and witness to Cai’s death, then you can’t be the ones to explain how it came about—not to mention, someone has to tell Modred that he lost Agravaine at nearly the same hour.”

  “You’ll take that burden on yourself, will you? Why?”

  Edgar chortled. “Because I have with me the wife and son of the man who killed him—his name is Myrddin.”

  Nell and Huw each took one step back but then found themselves corralled on all sides by Edgar’s men, who had gathered to listen to their lord’s exchange with Beorhtsige and stayed to do his bidding. Nell stared at Edgar, horrified at the betrayal and hardly able to believe he could be so two-faced. In a single hour, he’d gone from a man who felt the need to speak to Modred in person about his allegiance, to being their captor.

  Beorhtsige’s eyes widened, though he had enough control to mask his surprise otherwise. “The man who escaped from Rhuddlan?”

  “The very one,” Edgar said.

  One of Beorhtsige’s men dismounted and approached, “May I speak, my lord?”

  Beorhtsige canted his head in a gesture of permission. “You may, Caradoc.”

  The young man lifted his chin to point to Nell and Huw. “I’ve seen them at Garth Celyn, Arthur’s seat. The woman is indeed Myrddin’s and the boy is his son, Huw, just as Lord Edgar says.”

  “And you would deliver them to Modred? You are a cold man, Lord Edgar.” Beorhtsige shook his head, but his tone was admiring.

  “The longer we delay here, the more likely that Modred will hear this news from someone else. Personally, if I am to speak to him of the disaster that Buellt has become, I’d rather be riding into Wroxeter with King Arthur and these two prisoners to soften the blow.”

  King Arthur spoke for the first time. “And the Saxon called me swine. I was right not to meet you at that church.” He spat in the snow. “My brother is dead because of you.”

  Edgar took a step forward and backhanded the king across the face.

  “No!” Nell ran forward and fell on her knees in front of the king, who’d rocked backwards at first but now steadied and put his bound hands to his lip. When next he spat, the spittle was bloody in the snow.

  “Mother!” Huw struggled against his guards. For a moment, he gave as good as he got, his hands curled into fists, punching at his captors in his desperation to get free. But then one of them moved in under his guard and slugged him twice in the belly. He bent over, gasping for breath. Other guards hauled his arms behind his back, forcing him upright, and the same guard punched him in the face. Huw collapsed in the arms of the guards behind him, and when they hauled him to his feet, he had a nasty cut on his left cheek, and his eyes glowed with anger and pain.

  Nell shook her head at him, one quick jerk, and he yielded, though perhaps that was simply because he didn’t have the breath to fight anymore. Tears streaming down her cheeks at how wrong this had gone so quickly, she pulled a cloth from her waist and dabbed at the bloody gash at the corner of the king’s mouth. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke.

  King Arthur looked into her eyes. “It is nothing, my dear. Just one more atrocity in a lifetime of war. Tell Huw not to fight them. He should save his strength for when it is truly needed.”

  Nell swallowed down her tears around the giant lump in her throat and turned to look up accusingly at Edgar. “You—”

  “I do what I must.” Edgar’s tone was steady, and he didn’t look away.

  She couldn’t read him. She didn’t know how her world had turned so completely upside down. The victory at Buellt meant nothing with the king in chains.

  Meanwhile, Beorhtsige made a sound of disgust and turned away to see to the disposition of his men, leaving several to guard the king, but otherwise paying him no more attention.

  Both she and the king were soaked to the knees now, but she stayed where she was—still unbound herself, but unable to leave him.

  “It’s all right, Nell.” King Arthur’s hands were tied at the wrists, but they were in front of his body, and he touched her chin with one finger, asking her to turn back to him. “All will be well.” His words were patently untrue, and he said them only to make her feel better.

  Then a curious look came into the king’s eyes as they strayed downwards to the cross around her neck, which her sudden forwar
d movement had revealed. Usually she kept the cross tucked underneath her bodice. He used the same finger to touch it. The movement was almost intimate and very out of place in this gathering of hateful Saxons. And yet, it was as if he and she were alone on an island, speaking Welsh amidst a sea of English. “Where did you get that cross?”

  “From Myrddin at-at our wedding two days ago.” Nell stuttered, suddenly terrified to be telling the king that Myrddin had married without his overt consent, though, of course, King Arthur had himself suggested the possibility to Myrddin in the days leading up to the fight at the Strait. “It came to him from his mother—” but that was all the explanation Nell managed before two of Edgar’s men hauled her away from the king. She ended up beside Huw, whose arms had now been tied at the wrists like King Arthur’s. He was breathing somewhat shallowly and holding himself stiffly.

  King Arthur had been lifted bodily to his feet as well. He kept his eyes on Nell, however—on the cross, it seemed—until he was forced with a cuff at his head by one of Beorhtsige’s men to turn towards his horse. That little display of brutality, following hard on the heels of Beorhtsige’s and Edgar’s actions, was designed to show him how little power he had here.

  It had shown her too, and she told Huw (in Welsh) what the king had said to tell him. “Do as they say, son.”

  “But—”

  Nell turned her head away from the king and looked into Huw’s face, meaning for him to read authority there. Huw stopped speaking and gave her a jerky nod, subsiding entirely. “Yes, Mother. We, and he, must stay strong in order to live to fight another day.”

  “With King Arthur prisoner, I can think of no better place for us to be than by his side,” Nell said.

  Huw looked past her to where the king now sat on his horse. “I have learned so much these last weeks. Father isn’t here, so I must do what he would do.”

  Nell nodded. “For better or for worse, Myrddin would do everything in his power, up to and including sacrificing all honor, to aid the king.”