Frost Against the Hilt (The Lion of Wales Book 5)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Did he tell you also about the battle at Garth Celyn where King Arthur knighted him?” Nell said.

  Anwen nodded. “His father almost died that day because Huw failed to act.”

  Nell bit her lip. Huw really did like this girl if he’d chosen to tell her the truth rather than encourage her admiration with a stirring tale of his bravery and nobility. “Then you know that what we do we do not do lightly.”

  Anwen turned her head to gaze at the countryside, as Nell had been doing before the seeing had overtaken her. “I didn’t realize how easy it is to kill a man and how hard it is to live with afterwards, even knowing that we had no choice. There was so much blood.” She shook her head and looked the other way, towards the great hall. Men were moving from it to the stable, readying their horses to ride.

  “Who taught you to shoot?” Nell said.

  “My uncle’s captain, at my uncle’s request. He has taught all the women in the household. With Saxons all around us, my uncle saw no reason for half of his family to be useless in a fight.” She shrugged again. “We’ve been lucky that none of us have ever needed to defend Caer Caradoc.”

  “We’ll need all of you now. You’ll see too that your uncle is not alone in his beliefs. When the armies come, women will march among them, and not just as spearwomen or cavalry. There will be archers like you.” Nell drew Anwen’s attention back to the magnificent view before them. “When Caradoc stood on this very spot before his last battle with the Romans, the women painted their faces blue and fought alongside their men. I even heard that one of Britain’s greatest generals was a woman.”

  Anwen smiled ruefully. “They lost though.”

  “They did.” Nell gave a low laugh. “That wasn’t, perhaps, the best example I could have used.”

  Anwen’s gray eyes were grave as they looked at Nell. “Can you tell me what kind of man Huw is?”

  “What kind of man do you think he is?”

  The girl bit her lip. “Brave and kind. Honorable.”

  Nell smiled gently. “Never fear. What you have already learned of him is everything you need to know.”

  Chapter Five

  14 December 537 AD

  Nell

  Shouting in the courtyard distracted them both, and they turned to see Huw waving to them from below. “The king would speak to us.”

  Before Nell could answer, Anwen raised her hand in acknowledgement, another smile coming to her lips, this one genuine, and Huw waited for them to descend the steps. He held out one elbow to each woman and escorted them across the frozen courtyard, which would soon be muddy and churned by the feet and hooves of the army that was arriving to support them. It wasn’t often that a churned up courtyard was something to look forward to.

  Large, perhaps fifty feet on a side, Cador’s hall was framed in wood. Upon entering, Nell found herself shivering, more than when she’d been outside, at her relief to suddenly find herself warm. The central fire was doing a passable job holding back the cold.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Myrddin’s voice came softly from behind her.

  “I really doubt that.” She turned her head to look up at him.

  His eyes twinkled down at her. “Then you should tell me, wife, so that I will know and don’t have to guess.”

  Nell laughed to realize that her brief prayer for respite had already been answered. “You had the same dream I did.”

  “So it seems. You can be sure that I am not letting you enter Modred’s camp today, tomorrow, or any day in a heroic act of self-sacrifice.”

  Nell’s brow furrowed. “That’s not—”

  But she was interrupted by King Arthur, who, at the sight of Myrddin and Nell, tipped his head to indicate that they should approach. Huw and Anwen were already standing to one side of the central fire, not far from Cador. He regarded Huw and Anwen for a moment from underneath his bushy brows and then returned his attention to the king.

  Silence fell, and it was only then that Nell became aware that the rest of the inhabitants of Caer Caradoc had filed inside too. Altogether, upwards of sixty people filled the hall. At least ten were women, and Nell hoped that Anwen was right and that they could shoot. A handful of children sat beside their parents or grandparents. Caer Caradoc was a home as well as a fortress, and Nell’s stomach twisted in unease to know that she and her companions had brought war down upon them.

  King Arthur spread his arms wide. “My people—” he turned to Cador, “my lord Cador, I give you my thanks for accepting me into Caer Caradoc. I have come because we—I—must make one last stand against Modred, just as our ancestors stood here against the invaders centuries ago.”

  Nell looked down at her feet, holding back an ironic smile. She was in no way surprised that King Arthur knew the history of this place, but she was surprised that he called upon it. As Anwen had pointed out, Caradoc had lost.

  But Arthur wasn’t finished. “In that last battle against the Romans, Caer Caradoc stood as an island, a last outpost of defiance against a far greater empire that stretched from Anglesey to Rome. We, however, stand not as an island but as the leading edge of a sword that is the people of Britain. Behind us lies all Wales, unconquered and unbowed. A few days ago, we defeated a Saxon army at Buellt. In a few days’ time, we will defeat the rest of Modred’s army on the field of Camlann before Caer Caradoc.

  “And even should I fall in battle, able men will rise up to take my place. I have acknowledged my true heir and cousin, Myrddin ap Ambrosius,” He held out a hand to Myrddin, “—and his son and heir, Huw.”

  The nods around the hall were almost universal—and some of the heavy weight, which had settled onto Nell’s chest as a result of what she’d seen, lifted. Myrddin was accepted. In the coming days and weeks, if they survived this, he would spend much of his time in the public eye.

  “The Saxons will come with an army unlike any we have ever seen. Thirty years ago I made a stand at Badon.” King Arthur gestured to Cador. “Lord Cador was beside me then as he stands beside me now. That victory gave us peace for a generation. Although peace was lost to us the moment Modred decided that he wanted to rule Wales while I still lived and didn’t want to wait for the honor, peace can be achieved again. All we have to do is fight—” Arthur paused, taking a moment to survey the people before him, “One. More. Battle.”

  A restlessness wafted over and around the onlookers. They had to know this was coming, but the clarity with which King Arthur was speaking made it real to them in a way his arrival had not. Nell had dreamed of Arthur’s death her whole life, and the vision she’d had on the wall-walk was just one of a thousand instances where she’d seen it. She couldn’t blame the people here for being unsettled by Arthur laying the possibility before them for the first time.

  “Over the next hours and days, the armies of Wales will gather here, and then Modred himself will come. He will not be able to resist the chance to end this war with one great victory. He believes that if he strikes me down, all Wales will fall at his feet.”

  Myrddin leaned down to whisper in Nell’s ear. “The king is right that Modred will come. King Arthur is too great a prize, and Modred knows that as long as Arthur lives, he can never be the undisputed High King of the Britons.”

  Modred would have been far better off ignoring the army on the hilltop and instead driving his army straight into Wales to burn, pillage, and conquer. Fort after fort would fall to him, and King Arthur would be helpless to stop him. His army would disintegrate as lords hastened home to protect their people and lands. And then Modred could come and take Caer Caradoc last of all, just as the Romans had.

  But as they’d discussed with Gareth and Edgar back at the barn, that course of action, though tactically sound, would take time. It was winter, and Modred had a huge army to feed. Her vision on the wall-walk had shown her that moving the battle from Caer Fawr to Caer Caradoc had changed nothing, or not enough. If they were to avert Arthur’s death this time, they would have to do more.

  Murmurs
emanated again from the people in the hall, prompting King Arthur to raise a hand to silence his audience. “I did not say that we would fall—only that Modred believes it. I must warn you, however, that the odds are against us. He has the might of Mercia behind him and far more men than we can bring to bear. I understand if you wish to flee—”

  The murmurs and calls grew louder, mostly in protest. Beside Nell, Myrddin stirred and seemed to want to speak, but then he subsided, settling back on his heels. King Arthur, however, had noticed him and now gave Myrddin a brief nod, indicating that the floor was his.

  In response, Myrddin stepped forward and the hall quieted. The people didn’t know this new son of Ambrosius and wanted to hear what he had to say. “There is no shame in fear, only in cowardice, which if you do flee you can turn into nobility. I ask that as you travel through Wales, you tell others of what we do here and urge them towards Caer Caradoc. Perhaps one will respond and fight in your stead. And then I ask that you find a place to be safe, if such a place exists—on the far end of the Lleyn Peninsula, perhaps, or in a cave in the mountains, as some of King Arthur’s own counselors at one time urged on him. Survive, to ensure that the story of what we do here lives on among our people, even as we fall to Modred’s force and the might of Mercia.”

  Myrddin raised a hand and clenched it into a fist in front him. “Or you could stay and fight with us.”

  Nell clasped her hands behind her back, waiting for the people to disperse. The words that Arthur and Myrddin had spoken had been important, stirring even. Now that the speeches were over, she wasn’t the only one who had tears in her eyes to think on what they said and what was coming. But King Arthur hadn’t called her and Myrddin into the hall to listen to him prepare his people for battle. They were here to plan. For all Arthur’s warning words of the dangers they faced, he had no intention of losing this fight.

  Myrddin and Nell joined King Arthur by the fire, where a meal was being laid out on a round table that would allow them to confer equally with one another without having to shout from one end of the table to the other. The dais, with its long rectangular table, remained empty.

  As Myrddin and Nell approached, Cador pulled out a chair beside Godric, and then he waved a hand to indicate that Huw and Anwen join the meal. “You don’t mind, do you, my lord?” he said to Arthur, “I’ve found that the young sometimes have a perspective the old would do well to listen to.”

  “My usual counselors are spread far and wide.” King Arthur’s eyes were on Anwen as she sat down, her chair pulled out by Huw. “I think we can use all the help any man—or woman—has to give.”

  “Quite right,” Cador said.

  The variety and quantity of food before them was not far off from what Modred had fed the people in his hall at Wroxeter, but Nell hadn’t been able to eat a thing that evening, since Gareth had arrived to inform Modred of Myrddin’s death just as the meal was starting. That was the last real meal she’d been a party to. So, council of war or not, she fell to her food with enthusiasm.

  They began by discussing the disposition of their men, few as they were now, and deliberating upon who might come to fight. Immediately upon arrival at the fort, King Arthur had sent out riders in every direction to call the lords of Wales to him, beyond what Gareth, Edgar, and Godric’s men had already gone to do. They would need every man: Geraint and Gawain from Buellt; Cedric from Brecon; other lords from Powys, Morganwgg, and Deheubarth. Garth Celyn, King Arthur’s stronghold in north Wales, was far away—seventy miles as the crow flies. Bedwyr, the steward, would lead men east the moment he heard the king’s call, but first he had to know they were needed.

  Cador leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “We need more men, Arthur. My scouts have been watching Modred for weeks. Years.” He laughed without humor. “He has more men than we do.”

  “Then we shall have to deploy the men we have more intelligently than he does.” King Arthur looked to Myrddin, who was sitting next to Nell. “Begin with your dream, back at the barn. I need to know the whole of it. What did you see?”

  “Myrddin is a seer?” Cador looked startled, but he was the only one. Nell assumed that Huw had said something of their visions to Anwen in their journey here, since it was the dream that had prompted them to come to Caer Caradoc instead of Caer Fawr in the first place. The others, even Godric, took the request in stride. Nell almost laughed to think they were more used to her and Myrddin’s visions by now than she was.

  Myrddin had been taking a sip of mead from his goblet, but he set it down. “Both Nell and I have the gift.” He glanced at Nell, who nodded, and then he related their vision to the gathering. He gave Arthur the facts without emotion, for which Nell was grateful.

  When he finished, however, she leaned forward and drew everyone’s attention to her. “What Myrddin describes wasn’t exactly what I saw.”

  King Arthur canted his head. “Is that good news? Because I’m with Myrddin that trading your life for Modred’s is not a bargain I would make.”

  Nell patted Myrddin’s thigh in what she hoped he would interpret as a reassuring way. “I submit that it might well be worth it, but in my dream, it is Myrddin who makes that sacrifice, not me.”

  Myrddin drew in a breath. “What?”

  “That’s what I saw. It wasn’t I who went to the camp, but you pretending to be a Saxon man-at-arms.”

  King Arthur rubbed his chin. “Why would you two not see the same? Isn’t that usually the way of it?”

  Myrddin pushed back his stool and rose to his feet in order to pace away from the table. He stopped a dozen yards away and stared unseeing at the door.

  His eyes on Myrddin, King Arthur eased back from the table too and clasped his hands before his lips as if in prayer. He looked over the top of his fingers at Nell. “Do you know why?”

  “No,” Nell said.

  Myrddin swung around. “I do, my lord. It is what I have thought for some time, though I haven’t said it. Nell and I dream in tandem. For most of our lives, we dreamed the same dream, but we were not together then. Since our marriage, we have had visions, some the same, some different, but they have, in a way, been paired. What I think now is that the dreams tell us of a possible future. They direct our steps—either away from what we see, as was the case at the church where your brother died, or towards what we see, as in the case of Wroxeter. If we are to interpret this most recent dream, as with the others, we must work in tandem. That was the message of the dream. While we were shown a possible future—one in which I risk my life, and another in which Nell does—we have much more to learn from it than not to do that.”

  “What might that be?” Cador said. “Did not Arthur just tell me that the battle was inevitable? Is that not what you told him?”

  “It is inevitable—” Myrddin broke off, seemingly unable to find the words to explain, so Nell spoke for him.

  “In the dream, Myrddin tries to kill Modred because he knows that the final battle where King Arthur dies by Modred’s hand is coming.”

  Myrddin nodded. “We’ve both seen Modred’s army on the march. Coming here has not been enough to change that.” He looked at Nell. “Has it for you?”

  She shook her head, thinking of the vision she’d just had on the wall-walk. “It’s always in my mind’s eye.”

  Cador stared at her for a moment and then transferred his gaze to Myrddin. “So what you’re saying is that you had a vision of Nell trying to avert Arthur’s death because your dreaming self had a vision of Modred killing him.”

  “Yes.” Nell and Myrddin spoke together.

  “So perhaps what is important is not what you immediately saw—” Anwen had listened to the whole conversation so far with calm eyes, “but what else it tells you. Perhaps the vision is a warning to you both not to try to avert the battle that is coming. Nell is warned against Myrddin’s course of action, and Myrddin against Nell’s.”

  Myrddin jerked his head in a sharp nod. “The battle itself will not be averted. What must
still be, however, is its outcome.”

  “Or,” King Arthur pushed to his feet and approached Myrddin, “you are being told that my death is inevitable, no matter what any of us try to do to stop it. And thus, we should not try.”

  “I refuse to believe that, my lord,” Myrddin said.

  Arthur gave a low laugh. “You are my heir, and I will not risk you. It is no longer your job to avert my death. If I fall, it is you who must stand in my stead. Only you can lead my people, and you can’t do that if you are dead in a Saxon camp. Maybe the dream is telling you that you must put aside the seer to become king.”

  Myrddin shook his head. “My lord, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t believe that either. Instead, I fear the dream is telling me quite the opposite. I fear, rather, that if I am not seer, none of us will be king.”

  Chapter Six

  14 December 537

  Myrddin

  “I can’t say much for the comfort,” Myrddin said as he tucked the blankets around Nell, “but at least we are hidden from watching eyes.”

  Nell grinned. “Or listening ears.”

  Myrddin was the heir to the throne of Wales, and thus should have had a private room to sleep in. But while Cador had attempted to give up his own room to King Arthur, the king had refused, accepting a pallet and blankets among his warriors. That was all very well and good, but such nobility of action left no room for the intimacy Myrddin craved with Nell. Thus, he’d made a nest for them in one of the stalls in the stable. His horse, which still didn’t have a name, peered at them over the gate that blocked the doorway, confused as to how he could be tethered in the aisle rather than in his own stall. He whickered his objections and nudged the stall door with his nose.

  “Just give me an hour, old fellow,” Myrddin said.

  “An hour!” Nell poked Myrddin’s belly. “That’s all I get?”

  Myrddin scooped her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. “Two hours maybe, but I can’t promise the stable boys won’t come back early. I bribed them with a jug of mead.”