Arthur was crouched down, his hand cradling bruised ribs. He wiped at blood trickling from his nose, then reached forward to touch the sprawled form of Morgause. She lay on her back, one arm flung at a weird angle, dark blood oozing from a deep cut on her forehead.
“Oh, Mithras!” He spoke through a slow exhaled breath. “She’s dead.” He was uncertain whether to feel relief or what. There would be a deal of explaining to do over this.
“Nonsense!” Gwenhwyfar was recovering her wits. She pointed at the steady rise and fall of the woman’s breathing. “We had best be from here. Now.” She stepped to the door and opened it a little way. “Now, Arthur! Come on!”
He rose unsteadily to his feet; the room was spinning, his head ached, his face felt puffed and bruised. Gwenhwyfar grabbed at his hand, pulled him out of the door and quickly round the corner. The first comers were entering the courtyard seeking the cause of the noise.
Pulling Arthur after her, at a run, Gwenhwyfar took sanctuary within the nearest granary. A babble of voices and alarm filtered from outside with, once, the commanding voice of Osmail demanding explanation.
Beyond the stillness and quiet of the granary the noise passed by, gradually dwindling. Gwenhwyfar brushed dirt and cobwebs from hair, clothing, and her bandaged wrist. It was throbbing dreadfully again. She wrinkled her nose at her grimed hands, guessed her face to be a similar colour; fiddled with a tear to the shoulder of her tunic. She would need to get this mended and tidy herself afore anyone asked questions.
Arthur had seated himself on a grain sack, his shoulders hunched, head resting between his hands. With thoughts shrivelling his insides he suddenly felt sick. Morgause. Words and implications. Implying he was bedmate to his beloved lord, her hands on his body, mouth covering his. He tumbled forward spewing out the disgust.
Concerned, Gwenhwyfar hunkered beside him, one hand resting lightly on his back waiting for the violent shaking to cease, though her own body had not settled.
Embarrassed, Arthur stood, wiping at his mouth, disconcerted to find his legs were having difficulty supporting him.
Tactful, Gwenhwyfar retreated a few paces, squatting down on her heels. “Best get the thing out of you.” A slight smile. “I have been long enough with Etern to know how a stomach reacts to distasteful things.” The smile broadened. “My brother’s guts are as unpredictable as a sea wind on a summer day.”
Arthur attempted to return the smile, said with an over lightness that did little to hide his discomfort, “Who need know of this?”
“Of what?” Gwenhwyfar had ambled to the door, was peeping out. Love of the Gods, but her wrist ached! People had drifted away about their business; all seemed quiet. “There’s nothing for anyone to know. Some rafters gave way – it has been expected. We’re not allowed up there, Da knows the timber’s rotten,” she turned suddenly to grin at him, “and I am unwilling to broadcast disobeyed orders.” She shrugged. “No one save Morgause knew you were in there.” Throwing the door wide, Gwenhwyfar stepped out into the sunshine. “And she certainly did not see me.” She cocked her head on one side, looking back into the muted shadows within the great building. Colour was returning to Arthur’s ashen face, blotched by the blood and bruising. “I would suggest you had a fall from a horse, or a fight with some low born in the settlement. None will query it.”
She walked away, but returned a few seconds later with the need to say one thing more. Arthur had not moved.
In the doorway she was silhouetted black against the brightness. “There are things that sometimes you wish others not to know, but between friends a secret can be as binding as the blood-tie of kinship. And the keeping can last as long.”
June 450
XI
The boys, stripped to the waist, were turning new scythed hay, making idle, breathless conversation as they tossed the sweet smelling, drying grass. Arthur’s bruising was a faint memory of shaded yellow against sun tanned bronze skin; gone was that weary look of watchfulness and unease, replaced by relaxed laughter and happy contentment. His hair was longer, the close-cropped Roman style beginning to grow, with a slight curl, down his neck and flop across his forehead. Arthur enjoyed this work; it was hard but that was nothing to shy away from. Among friends and with the freedom to enjoy oneself, who noticed the soreness of sunburn or aching back and shoulders at the end of a long day? Lord and slave alike were out in the meadows for this haymaking. Animal feed must be gathered whether the menfolk were away or no, and the grain harvest would soon follow. Winter did not forget to call for the sake of a war hosting.
June had begun cool and cloudy with a wind that blew steadily from the sea, but as the month neared the longest day the wind veered and the sun blazed. If the rains held off these next weeks, it would be a good harvest. Wheat and barley were fast ripening, the green corn spreading wide smiles of rich gold.
Gwenhwyfar straightened, one hand easing her back, the other pushing the wide-brimmed straw-plaited hat from her forehead. Etern tossed his pitchfork, turning another few yards of hay to dry the underside. Arthur, working along the opposite side, looked up and regarded Gwenhwyfar, leaning now on her fork.
“If you’re intending to stop work, lass, you could employ your rest by bringing us a skin of water.”
“I’ll do better,” she answered, happily compliant. Digging the prongs of the fork into the sun baked soil, she unknotted the girdle that hitched her skirt to above her knees, letting the material fall full length. There were some advantages in being a girl after all: how much cooler to feel the swirl of thin-woven cloth around your legs, rather than the tight cling of bracae. “I’ll fetch food and wine. It’s time we rested – look, others are going off to the shade.” She wiped at the sweat on her neck and face with the back of her hand.
Sitting beneath a chestnut tree, legs outstretched, spine secure against the broad trunk, Arthur remarked, “It’s hot for the hosting. They’d not be able to get away from this noon heat if engaged in battle.”
“Would you notice the sun, I wonder,” Etern said through a mouthful of goat’s cheese, “in the midst of fighting?”
“Happen not.”
Passing along the skin of watered wine, Gwenhwyfar folded her arms behind her head and looked up into the bluest of blue skies. A few great puffs of cloud floated lazily, a shriek of swifts darted past. She closed her eyes, let the drone of bees and hum of grasshoppers float by as peaceful as a meandering river. The air was full of lazy summer scents, mingling with the salt tang of the sea. “We must hear soon,” she pondered, “surely?”
Neither Etern nor Arthur made immediate answer. One or other of them proclaimed the same thing almost every day: “We must hear soon.” But nothing came, no word of the hosting. Good news, or bad.
“When I become War Lord,” Arthur announced, “I will set up efficient lines of communication.”
Eyes snapping open, Gwenhwyfar chuckled, not unkindly. “Oh ho, so you are planning on the honour of War Lord? A high ambition for a fatherless servant’s brat.”
Good-natured, Arthur lifted his shoulder then let it fall. “We’ve all got to harbour some plan. There’d be no point of expectation and hope otherwise.”
Gwenhwyfar settled herself again, lying prone amid a swathe of uncut grass, chuckled drowsily. “Dream on, lad, for that’s all that desire can lead to – more dreams.”
Arthur sat forward and absently picked up a stick, prodding a hole in the ground between his legs. “I’d have a fair chance if Uthr were my sire, but…” He sighed, rammed the stick too hard, snapping it in half.
“But Ectha is your foster father, and he has two sons of his own, besides being as timid as a doe in fawn.”
Arthur grinned at Gwenhwyfar’s plain spoken accuracy. “Aye, it’ll be working the estate or serving as junior officer in some petty lord’s hosting for me.” He reclaimed the longer part of his broken stick and twiddled it between his fingers. “I want to be part of a great army, want to lead – I’ve ideas to improve efficiency.”
He tossed the stick aside. “Happen I’ll have a chance when Uthr becomes king.”
Kindly, laying her fingers lightly on his arm, Gwenhwyfar remarked, “That could be any day now.”
Etern had stretched himself full length in the shade and closed his eyes to doze in this brief respite from work and sun. He opened one eye, squinted through the dappled brightness at his sister. Something had happened a’tween these two, some great event had twined them together as firm as stitching in leather harness. Neither had said what and, for all his questioning, he had gleaned no hint. He closed his eye again. It had something to do with that foul woman, Morgause, and the day the ceiling had collapsed into her chamber. He smiled at the recollection. It was not funny, of course, but there had been much secret pleasure throughout the Caer these past weeks. Bad tempered Morgause confined to her bed with the pain of a fractured arm and dizzying headaches; Branwen similarly out the way from lingering disgrace and the birthing of her second born son. Were it not for the worry of the hosting, life would be almost perfect.
“What for me?” Gwenhwyfar said idly. “I have no particular dreams,” she beamed at Arthur, “beyond owning one of Da’s best horses.”
Etern, without moving, added, “You, Gwen, will marry a lord in a strategic alliance. Your offspring will unite Gwynedd and whatever noble line this man comes from, making the strongest and most formidable family in the country.” He spoke carelessly, meaning no offence, stating fact. Alliances were for the female born to bring to the male line.
Gwenhwyfar, however, leapt to her feet, her fists bunching. “If that’s all you hope for me, brother, then you had best think again.” She stamped her foot. “I will not be bargained out for breeding, not for all the ‘strategic alliances’ on offer!”
Etern sat up open mouthed, staggered at the unexpected explosion. Now what had he said?
“If I marry,” his sister declared, “I will wed only with the strongest leader, a man who will unite Britain and drive out our enemies.” Her green eyes flashed with sparks of tawny gold; she tossed her head, the sunlight catching on those loose wisps of hair that would never be tamed, setting the colour glowing with vibrant reds and golds. “I mean it, this is no idle boast.”
Etern exchanged a glance with his friend, who shrugged sympathy.
Arthur was thinking how pretty Gwenhwyfar was. A child still, with only the subtle hints of womanhood touching her face and figure, but it was there, the beauty, waiting to open like a flower from its budding. Morgause was beautiful, but she was like the ice and snow that set a dull winter’s day bright with cold exhilaration. Gwenhwyfar’s beauty would be softer, more like the gold and russets and warmth of a sunlit autumn day, with all its toss of wind-swirled leaves and crackling orange-flamed fires. Aye, and have the touch of frost that nipped your fingers of a morning and caught your breath sharp in your lungs.
“Vortigern’s sons are already married,” he said lightly, pushing an unexpected, alarmingly erotic thought aside. “Happen you are thinking of wedding one of their sons? Or the sons of Vortigern’s sister are favoured, though the eldest, Gorlois, was unlucky in marriage.” His caustic laugh was derisive. “He could not keep a wife – losing the first to God’s kingdom, and the second to Uthr.”
Etern chuckled, echoing Arthur’s irony. The story of how the young Ygrainne met and fell in love with Uthr was well known, had almost become legend. The consequent fighting, heightened by Uthr’s feud with Vortigern, was made all the more violent through Gorlois’s desire for revenge against the man who had stolen his wife. Gorlois lost both wife and life, though Vortigern eventually won the victory of the warring.
Arthur buffeted his friend’s shoulder with his fist. “There are always his two brothers to consider. Melwas or Amlawdd would serve.”
Gwenhwyfar made a crude, insulting noise through her lips. “Both fat-bellied toads.” She laughed, the sour temper evaporating as suddenly as it had come. “Vortigern is about to fall, his obnoxious kindred along with him.”
“Aye, happen even now Uthr has removed his head and is marching in victory.” Etern scrambled to his feet, slicing through the air with an imaginary sword. “There will be a new line of sons for Britain.”
Reluctant to quell this enthusiasm, Gwenhwyfar still felt impelled to interrupt. “What line, brother? Uthr has no sons. He would have to divorce Ygrainne and take a new wife.”
She chattered on with Etern, discussing possibilities. There was no shortage of noble born ladies, and then Uthr’s two surviving brothers had issue: Ectha, two boys, and Emrys, the youngest brother, an infant son.
Gwenhwyfar tossed a question at Arthur, unaware he had taken no part in this conversation. He sat quiet, shoulders hunched, systematically shredding a grass stalk. There was no place for him in the line of descendants. He was a bastard, unacknowledged. That Ectha had probably sired him was as nothing. He found it difficult to believe that Ectha, a quiet family man who still shed tears at the long ago death of his beloved wife, could have, would have, so casually rutted with Ygrainne’s serving maid.
“Would Uthr dare take Morgause as wife?” Gwenhwyfar repeated.
He glanced up, his gaze flickering between Etern and Gwenhwyfar. “She would like that, has been hoping for such a thing for some while. A mistress is one thing, but marriage?” He spread his hands, indicating the difference. “The bitch likes to think – for us all to think – that Uthr loves her, but I believe he does not.”
Leaning forward hugging her knees, Gwenhwyfar asked with keen interest, “What makes you say so?”
Arthur threw aside a piece of the broken stalk. “Little things, like – oh, I don’t know – he says things about her, lewd or coarse remarks, laughs with the men about her.” He glanced again at Gwenhwyfar. “It seems to me, a man will say what he likes about his whore, but he keeps private the woman he loves.”
Bats were flitting through the deepening blue of twilight as the outer defences of the settlement loomed ahead. The three had seized the chance to ride, heading for the glow of a brilliant red sunset. Racing their horses until they were blown, they turned and ambled home as the first stars brightened against the darkening night sky.
As they clattered under the inner archway into the stronghold, old Marc, the gatekeeper, stepped forward and caught Aquila’s bridle causing the horse to skitter in alarm. Etern, almost unseated, shouted in quick anger, “Take care!”
Marc, his old, wrinkled face ashen grey, stroked the horse’s damp neck, calming him. “My apologies, young master, I had no intention of alarming you.” He spoke to Etern but his gaze drifted towards the lad Arthur, who rode on Aquila’s off side.
“There be news. I have orders to tell you, and young Master Arthur here, to go direct to Lord Osmail.”
Etern exchanged a swift glance with his friend and his sister. Good news? Bad?
Longing to go with them, disappointed that she had not been included, Gwenhwyfar slid from Splinter’s back and ran to the boys’ horses.
“I will see to these,” she said, taking their bridles. “Go, quickly.”
Etern nodded his thanks and gave her shoulder a brief squeeze as he dismounted, aware of the effort the offer had taken. As their hurried footsteps echoed away, Gwenhwyfar turned to Marc. “What news?”
His hand still resting on Aquila’s neck, the old soldier regarded Cunedda’s only daughter with sad eyes. Her mother’s gaze looked back at him. She touched his hand, felt a faint tremor beneath the twisted old knuckles. “What is it? Tell me.”
“Bad,” he said at length. “Terrible bad. The messenger’s horse was on its last legs, ridden almost to death.” He swallowed hard, seeing again the sight of the foundering horse, not an hour since, plunging through this same archway and staggering on the cobbles beyond, falling.
Tears slipped from Marc’s short-sighted old eyes.
“They say,” he said, “that Uthr be dead.”
XII
Cunedda returned to Caer Arfon in grief. Behind him came no elat
ed army marching proud beneath flying banners; no blaring of war horns or rousing marching songs. Instead, a weary, blood-grimed rabble, tottering to its knees, grateful for a place to rest and a chance to weep for the many dead. Tears fell from the eyes of a standard-bearer who defiantly carried the Dragon, tattered and stained with Uthr’s own spilt blood.
Uthr’s men and the men of Gwynedd, heads bowed, shoulders hunched, nursing disbelief and sorrow. The men of the Pendragon following wearily behind their lord’s friend, hearts and spirits empty and lost. Defeated men, uncaring what happened to them, with no further cause to fight and no cherished lord for whom to lay down their lives.
Many a man marching that last, endless mile regretted missing death on the battlefield. The lucky ones had gone ahead with their beloved lord.
The people, mostly women of the settlement, stood watching as the host returned, lining the broad main thoroughfare or clustered at the gateways. A mother here, a wife there, shouted their joy, welcoming a son or husband home; many, too many, threw their hands over their eyes and let loose their grief as they learnt their own would come home no more.
Others waited, silent, watching, remembering – as the straggle of wounded men limped or were carried past: bloodied, grey-faced men leaning on spears or friends, bundled into carts, draped over tired horses – remembering that other time of defeat, when Vortigern’s hired Saex had come tramping in the wake of Cunedda’s host. Remembering too, what he had ordered done.
Beyond the cries of relief or sorrow, they stood fearful. Cunedda’s stallion trailed its head, a front hoof stumbled on a sun baked rut. Cunedda gathered the reins and collected the animal’s balance. He heard the uneasy quiet, could see plain the nudging panic. His people remembered well the revenge of Vortigern. Cunedda entered his stronghold, dismounted and standing for a moment with one hand on his stallion’s weary neck, gave orders for seeing to the men’s well-being. He stroked his hand along his horse’s crest. Horses too had been lost, noble animals that gave courage without question. Few sights were more sickening than a horse with its belly slit open struggling to stand, not understanding why it could not. He saw Gwenhwyfar waiting before the open doors of the Hall.
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