The Kingmaking

by Helen Hollick

  Enniaun was remarking, “Vortigern seems well at ease among those who wear a flaxen mane and carry a Saex sword.”

  “Jesu’s love,” Etern spat beneath his breath, “when will we be rid of him and these pox-ridden Saex? It is time you became king, Arthur.”

  Taking a while to drain his goblet, Arthur wiped his mouth and shifted to a more comfortable position. The food might be good, but these benches were damned hard on the backside. “I am in the King’s service, Etern, I command men of his cavalry. Such talk could soon see me kicking on the wrong end of a rope.”

  About to say more, Etern found Cunedda’s stern gaze on him; read the unspoken message: Not here, boy, not now.

  “Aside,” Arthur said, setting his goblet down carefully. “Vortimer’s the eldest son. When Vortigern dies, he takes up the royal torque, not I.”

  “Pigswill!”

  Laughing to himself, Arthur recalled his earlier analogies: Rowena the sow, Winifred the plump little piglet. Aye, pigswill. Patiently, he waved aside Etern’s derision. “I support Vortimer, he’s as much against the King as are we. We cannot afford to fight among ourselves; if we do, we may as well stand back and invite Hengest in. He waits for a squabble in the front gate so he may creep in at the back.” With a leisurely shrug, he added, “Vortigern cannot live forever. Things will change when his eldest son comes to power.”

  “True enough,” replied Enniaun, emphasising his point by flapping his eating dagger, “but Vortimer himself is no spring cockerel – he could journey to the next world before his father.”

  “Or,” added Etern, “Vortigern’s wife could yet bear a son.”

  They glanced furtively at Rowena, again heavy with child. A beautiful woman once, but the years of constant pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or stillbirth had not been kind. None save her own people and the King much liked her.

  A brooding silence descended on Cunedda’s table, their individual thoughts broken by Etern. “Even if she did, who would want to follow a half Saex brat?”

  His brother laughed, the humour cut short by Arthur’s unexpectedly curt response. “Hengest and the Saex would.”

  Servants cleared away used dishes, removing uneaten food. Conversation turned to lighter matters. Several times Cunedda noticed Arthur looking at his daughter. Vortigern had expressed the wish to have Gwenhwyfar sit at table with his family – how could Cunedda refuse? He gulped a mouthful of strong wine, gestured to a slave to pour more. How did a lord refuse Vortigern the King without risking the loss of land and people?

  Cunedda had known Uthr well, had run with him as a cub, fought with him, pursued women with him. Now he recognised that same look in his son’s eyes, knew Arthur took after his father in more than a love of soldiering and a similarity of features. Women seemed drawn to a Pendragon as water was drawn downhill. How pleased he had been those summers past to discover his Gwenhwyfar had formed a friendship with Arthur – Gods, how pleased! He remembered how Uthr had first met with Ygrainne, then wed to another, and had wanted her. “Nonsense,” Arthur had said when he had spoken of Uthr’s love for his mother, but what could he know of such matters? He was barely conceived when Uthr had started a war because of Ygrainne. The aim was to claim the kingship, but it started because of his desire for Gorlois’s wife.

  Ah, Uthr had loved Ygrainne, always. Ygrainne, and only Ygrainne. The others, all the others, had only fulfilled a passing need. Another thought, that again made Cunedda drain his wine. What if Vortigern were also to read Arthur’s glances towards the girl? He should not have brought her to Londinium. He rolled his goblet between his hands, staring into the empty cup. A burst of laughter from the assembled company caused him to look up. How does a snared lord ignore a summons from the King?

  Do not harbour dreams of my daughter, Arthur, Cunedda thought with anguish. She cannot be yours.

  It was late when Vortigern at last withdrew. Rowena had retired earlier, taking the ladies with her. Reluctantly, Gwenhwyfar had left the banqueting hall with them, casting a pleading look at her father, who had responded with a gesture of helplessness. She had endured the princess’s insults and snide remarks all evening, had swallowed her pride and her temper, though her palm itched to slap the horrid girl’s fat cheeks. They were almost the same age, no more than half a year between them, but that was their only similarity.

  “Do you ride?” the princess had enquired.

  “Aye,” Gwenhwyfar had replied, to which Winifred had answered scornfully, “Mother says horse riding bows your legs. I will only travel by litter.” Such was the conversation for most of the evening.

  To her relief, Gwenhwyfar discovered she was not obliged to accompany the ladies to the Queen’s rooms, but was free to return to her own quarters where poor Ceridwen lay abed with a feverish headache. She entered the semi-darkened room quietly, whirled a few joyful paces and danced from the door to bed.

  Ceridwen sat up, her eyes bleary. The journey from Gwynedd had been exhausting – mentally, because of the excitement, as well as physically.

  “You sound happy. The banquet was good then?”

  Gwenhwyfar did a few more twirls before plonking herself on Ceridwen’s bed. The goose feather mattress bounced up and down. “It was awful! The food was far too rich and I had to sit next to the Princess, a spoilt madam if ever I met one.”

  Ceridwen frowned. Her head ached, her stomach still churned; had she missed something here? “May I ask then,” she said timorously, “why you are so gay?” She twitched Gwenhwyfar’s neat hair. “You have met someone! A lad.” She sat up eagerly. “Who? What’s he like?”

  Gwenhwyfar was off the bed, hugging herself as she skipped away across the room, deliberately teasing. When the fluttering excitement became too much she ran back to Ceridwen and hugged her. “Arthur’s here! Arthur the Pendragon. I assumed he would be on campaign or something, but no, he’s here.” She lay back across the bed, arms flung wide, gazing up at the cracks on the ceiling. “Oh, Ceridwen, he has grown so tall, so…” she released her breath in a whoosh, “so wonderful.”

  Ceridwen said nothing, snuggled into the warmth of her bed. It was only April, quite chilly at night, and this great echoing palace seemed rather musty and damp.

  “Oh,” she said, feigning indifference, “you’re in love. I thought something exciting had happened.”

  Despite the girl’s headache, Gwenhwyfar thumped her with a pillow.

  Winifred lingered before seeking her bed. She detested her father’s banquets – boring occasions for boring old men with boring conversations. She paused, her comb halfway down the tress of her unbound hair. She combed her own hair; the slaves were too clumsy, they pulled. One or two presentable young men this evening, but country clods, sons of over-ambitious petty lords. She would not waste time with such dismal prospects.

  Winifred sighed, set the comb down, walked aimlessly towards the bed. Arthur, now, he was no dung-shoveller, he was the Pendragon, wealthy, in command of her father’s cavalry. She twitched back the bed furs, slid beneath the smooth linen of the sheets. He was not exactly the most handsome young man, though, was he?

  Snuffing out the lamp beside the bed, Winifred settled herself to sleep, lying with her arms crooked behind her head, thinking. Arthur Pendragon was the most presumptuous, impertinent, discourteous lout in all her father’s army. She had paid him no heed before this night – but it interested her, this interaction between him and that rustic bred girl from wherever it was.

  And there was nothing Winifred liked better than destroying a lovers’ intrigue.

  XXI

  Cunedda selected an olive and studied it for a moment, wondering for how much longer such succulent fruits would be obtainable. Leather, glass, metal, cloth, everything of quality was disappearing, becoming more difficult to get hold of. Cheap stuff – now that was readily available, shoddy goods, badly made, poorly crafted – ah, it was all going, gathering speed, rumbling away downhill.

  This chamber, a fair-sized room, overlooke
d the palace gardens, attractive in the moonlight but revealed by day to be a mess of cracked paths, weed-choked flowerbeds and straggling, unkempt shrubs. Cunedda stood by a table, his two sons sprawling on couches, draped like discarded clothing.

  “Your inspired use of cavalry, Arthur,” he said, moving to the nearest couch and cuffing Etern’s boots from the cushions before sitting down, “is earning you quite a reputation.”

  Arthur, perched on the edge of a stool, picked with the tip of his dagger at a morsel of meat caught between his teeth. “Most of my boyhood was spent with a good friend, an old soldier whose farm borders the estate. Gaius served in a Roman cavalry unit. I learned much from him.” Warming to his subject, he expatiated, “I have tried to develop more than the basic tactics and skills within the limits of my own command.” He frowned, busy with placing the dagger back in its sheath. “But in all skirmishes not under my sole command we are held back. My fine mounted men are used for reconnaissance or harrying the enemy when he’s already in flight!” Contemptuously he sliced the air with his outstretched hand. “You, Sir,” he said, looking straight at Cunedda, “use your horses with more intelligence, as the tribal British have always done.”

  “Indeed, some of Rome’s best cavalrymen were British, and our ponies crossed with the better of Rome’s imported mounts have proved more than their worth as war mounts.” Cunedda sighed, nudged Etern further along the couch, stretched himself comfortably. He had drunk too much wine at that banquet; now it was swilling around in his belly with an over-indulgence of food, and the day’s ride atop that. By the Gods, but he was tired. “Vortigern, like so many others, prefers infantry. Horses cost more to keep.”

  Arthur waved the Lion’s words aside. “I know all that.” His smile was a lop-sided grin, his right eye half shut and left eyebrow cocked, giving him a penetrating, self assured expression that seemed to bore into Cunedda. “None the less, you have continued breeding good horses, Cunedda. You know there’s more to using a horse than just placing your arse on its back to get from alpha to beta.”

  Cunedda swallowed down a belch and regarded the lad, undaunted by that off-putting gaze. Cautiously, “A cavalryman knows more than how to lullump along clutching at mane and saddle, aye.”

  “A good cavalryman is a horseman. Men under my command are all horsemen. They, Vortigern’s mules,” he jabbed a finger towards the window, “grunt and mumble, refusing to listen to any suggestions I attempt to put forward. The high ranking commanders of the army – I include Vortigern’s sons here – argue that we have fought well enough with infantry for centuries so why change now?” He had his dagger out again, was twirling it between his fingers. “Fah! They see no further than day’s end.”

  Containing his amusement, Cunedda could almost see his old friend Uthr sitting before him, bellowing some tirade against whatever near-sighted stupidity had enraged him on this occasion.

  Arthur was still talking. “Vortigern originally hired Hengest and his rabble because we do not have the men to furnish an effective army of infantry. Mithras, Rome could call on the entire Empire to swell ranks, but what have we? One stagnating little island, surrounded by water that every day brings yet another keel-load of Saex. How can we ever match the skill of Rome? Not with men on foot, for sure.” Eagerly he swept on, Enniaun and Etern giving nods or murmurs of agreement. “Look at the success of Attila’s Huns, who fight, eat, sleep – even copulate, so I’ve heard tell – on horseback.”

  Enniaun said sharply, “You sound as though you admire that Scourge of God.”

  “As a commander and horseman, aye, I do.”

  Etern almost shared Arthur’s view. “Attila was not infallible, though. Gaul defeated his dunghill mob.”

  “Not so,” Arthur replied, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Attila was halted.” He stressed the word, “Halted, not defeated. He turned round and went for Rome itself instead.” He cupped his chin in his hand. “I wonder if our problems would have been less had he not died so prematurely – if he had continued into Gaul, and beyond.”

  Faces turned to look at him in astonishment. Arthur grinned, confident of his argument. “Would so many Saex have been eager to leave their kindred with Attila’s sword coming daily closer to their throats?”

  “On the dexter side,” Enniaun said drily, “happen the Saex took to their keels because of Attila.”

  “I heard,” Etern said, a well padded cushion held close against his chest as if it were a companionable woman, “that Attila’s remains were buried with three coffins containing all his wealth. One of gold, one of silver, one of iron.”

  “Aye,” Arthur agreed, with a wistful sigh of slight envy, “I heard the same. His funeral songs were sung by squadrons of his men riding round and around his body, which lay beneath a silken draped pavilion.” He whistled between his teeth. “That must have been a sight worth the watching.”

  They fell silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts. Etern stood up and fetched more wine. He took the jug round, pouring for his brother and Arthur. “Think you this suggestion of Council to try another appeal for help to Gaul will be of use to us? Da says it will not.”

  “I am in agreement with him.” Arthur wrinkled his upper lip. “Attila’s gone, but his hordes remain, and despite my admiration for his horsemanship, Enniaun, I am afeared of what his rabble almost succeeded in doing. Na, Gaul has too many of her own problems. We are abandoned to our fate. “Tis a pity that some of these fusty Councillors cannot see Rome has gone from Britain for ever and will not be returning, not now.” He snorted, shaking his head. These older men were so blind – aye, and not only the older men: Uthr’s own youngest brother, Emrys, claimed Rome would govern Britain again, and the Emperor would come swinging up the road from Dubris demanding to know what fool had let the country fall into such decay! “If we do not soon stop all this sitting around a council chamber endlessly talking instead of doing, there will be nothing worth coming back to anyway.”

  Cunedda had been listening through the drowsy fug of wine to the exchange of talk. He said cautiously, “They are men, Arthur, who cannot perceive life outside the dominance of Rome. Others – influential, wealthy men – have tasted freedom from Imperial taxation and would not want a return of those binding restrictions.

  Which is why Vortigern maintains such strong support. I do not want Rome, but then, I do not want Vortigern as an alternative. In my view we have exchanged one tyranny for another.”

  Enniaun sipped his wine. This was fine stuff, Vortigern’s best. “Let them write their appeal. They may be right: when the unrest settles, the Legions might be back. Although,” he raised his goblet towards Arthur in salute, “I agree with you, lad.”

  “If we got ourselves organised there would be no need to seek help!” Arthur bounced to his feet, fists waving. “We can do it alone, drive out the Saex and make peace between neighbouring tribes.” Arthur slammed the arm of a couch with his fist. Damn it, he knew he was right, but how to make others see?

  Cunedda sipped his wine reflectively. It was time for bed, but this talk was becoming interesting. He let a smile touch his mouth.

  Seeing it, Arthur said, not without bitterness, “You too laugh at me then?”

  “On the contrary. Continue.”

  For a moment Arthur was doubtful. His belly was full of men sniggering behind his back – and to his face. He would not have his father’s friend also making mockery of his ideas. But then, those others were as useless as cracked pots; Cunedda was different, a man of wisdom and sense, a man who knew how it felt to be backed into a corner with only a broken sword for defence. He lifted a foot onto a stool and rested his arm across his thigh.

  “I believe a strong, well-drilled cavalry force could tip the balance of survival in our favour.” Now he had started Arthur became eager to share his hopes, his plans. “Attila usually fought with three wings, left, right and centre, crashing forward at a gallop.” He moved his hand ahead of him, but was interrupted by Enniaun
.

  “How many do you mean by strong?”

  “Three alae comprising five hundred men each. Small enough to move fast and efficient. Large enough to be effective.”

  Enniaun half smiled. “Speaking kindly, lad, it is no surprise men laugh! That may not sound so many until you add on remounts and shield bearers and…”

  Undeterred, Arthur would not allow him to finish. He had heard the arguments too many times before. “Disciplined cavalry, under able commanders, moving fast to where they are needed, when needed. Used not as a reserve or for scouting or carrying packs and men to battle, but as a main, elite force. Coming down on the enemy from the centre and the wings together. “

  “No infantry?”

  “Aye, infantry, and archers, where needed, local militia who know the land.” As he talked, Arthur had straightened, setting his goblet down on a table to move freely about the room, gesturing with his arms. “Normally it is the cavalry who back the foot. With my way of thinking I would reverse it. Cavalry swinging in here, militia with bows and javelins here.” Carried away, his arm sent a potted plant crashing to the floor.