The Winter King twc-1

by Bernard Cornwell

  Gwlyddyn arrived beside me and took the heavy spear out of my hand. He listened to the distant footfalls, then nodded as though satisfied. “Only two of them,” he said calmly. “They've left their horses and are coming on foot. I'll take the first, and you hold the second man till I can kill him.” He sounded extraordinarily calm, which helped soothe my fears. “And remember, Derfel,” he added, 'they're frightened too.“ He pushed me into the shadows, then crouched on the path's far side behind the upended root mass of a fallen beech tree. ”Get down,“ he hissed at me. ”Hide!" I crouched and suddenly all the terror welled back inside me. My hands were sweating, my right leg was twitching, my throat was dry, I wanted to vomit, and my bowels were liquid. Hywel had taught me well, but I had never faced a man wanting to kill me. I could hear the approaching men, but I could not see them and my strongest instinct was to turn and run after the women. But I stayed. I had no choice. Since childhood I had been hearing tales of warriors and had been taught again and again that a man never turned and ran. A man fought for his Lord and a man stood up to his enemy and a man never fled. Now my Lord was sucking at Ralla's breast and I was facing his enemies, but how I wanted to be a child and just run! Suppose there were more than two enemy spearmen? And even if there were only two they were bound to be experienced warriors; skilled and hardened and careless in their killing.

  “Calm, boy, calm,” Gwlyddyn said softly. He had fought in Uther's battles. He had faced the Saxon and carried a spear against the men of Powys. Now, deep in his native land, he stooped in the tangle of earthy root-suckers with a half-grin on his face and my long spear in his sturdy brown hands. “This is revenge for my child,” he told me grimly, 'and the Gods are on our side." I was crouched behind brambles and flanked by ferns. My damp clothes felt heavy and uncomfortable. I stared at the trees that were thick with lichens and tangled with leaves. A woodpecker rattled nearby and I jumped with alarm. My hiding place was better than Gwlyddyn's, but even so I felt exposed, and never more so than when at last our two pursuers appeared just a dozen paces beyond my leafy screen. They were two lithe young spearmen with leather breastplates, strapped leggings and long russet cloaks thrown back over their shoulders. Their plaited beards were long and their dark hair was bound behind by leather thongs. Both men carried long spears and the second man also had a sword at his belt, though he had not yet drawn it. I held my breath.

  The leading man raised a hand and both men stopped and listened for a while before coming on again. The nearest man's face was scarred from an old fight, his mouth was open and I could see the gaps in his yellowed teeth. He looked immensely tough, experienced and frightening, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with a terrible desire to flee, but then the scar on my left palm, the scar that Nimue had put there, throbbed and that warm pulse gave me a jolt of courage.

  “We heard a deer,” the second man said disparagingly. The two men were advancing at a stealthy walk now, placing their feet carefully and watching the leaves ahead for the smallest flicker of movement.

  “We heard a baby,” the first man insisted. He was two paces ahead of the other who looked, to my scared eyes, to be even taller and grimmer than his companion.

  “Bastards have disappeared,” the second man said and I saw the sweat dripping off his face and I noticed how he gripped and re gripped his ash spear-shaft and I knew he was nervous. I was saying Bel's name over and over in my head, begging the God for courage, begging him to make me a man. The enemy was six paces away now and still coming, and all around us the greenwood lay warm and breathless and I could smell the two men, smell their leather and the lingering scent of their horses as sweat dripped into my eyes and I almost whimpered aloud in terror, but then Gwlyd-dyn leaped out of his ambush and screamed a war cry as he ran forward.

  I ran with him and suddenly I was released from fear as the mad, God-given joy of battle came to me for the very first time. Later, much later, I learned that the joy and the fear are the exact same things, the one merely transformed into the other by action, but on that summer afternoon I was suddenly elated. May God and His angels forgive me, but that day I discovered the joy that lies in battle and for a long time afterwards I craved it like a thirsty man seeking water. I ran forward, screaming like Gwlyddyn, but I was not so crazed as to follow him blindly. I moved over to the right side of the narrow path so that I could run past him when he struck the closer Silurian.

  That man tried to parry Gwlyddyn's spear, but the carpenter expected the low sweep of the ash staff, and raised his own weapon above it as he thrust his weapon home. It all happened so fast. One moment the Silurian was a threatening figure in war gear, then he was gasping and twitching as Gwlyddyn rammed the heavy spearhead through the leather armour and deep into his chest. And I was already past him, yelling as I swung Hywel's sword. At that moment I felt no fear, perhaps because the soul of dead Hywel came back from the Otherworld to fill me, for suddenly I knew exactly what I had to do and my war scream was a cry of triumph.

  The second man had a heartbeat's more warning than his dying companion and so he had dropped into a spearman's crouch from which he could spring forward with killing force. I leaped at him, and as the spear came at me in a bright, sun-touched lunge of steel I twisted aside and parried with my blade, not so hard as to lose control of the steel, but just enough to slide the man's weapon past my right side as I whirled the sword around. “It's all in the wrists, boy, all in the wrists,” I heard Hywel say and I shouted his name as I brought the sword hard down on to the side of the Silurian's neck. It was all so quick, so very quick. The wrist manoeuvres the sword, but the arm gives it force, and my arm held Hywel's great strength that afternoon. My steel buried itself in the Silurian's neck like an axe biting into rotten wood. At first, so green was I, I thought he had not died and I wrenched the sword free to strike at him again. I struck that second time and was aware of blood brightening the day and the man falling sideways and I could hear his choking breath and see his dying effort to pull the spear back for a second thrust, but then his life rattled in his throat and another great wash of blood ran down his leather-covered chest as he slumped on to the leaf mould.

  And I stood there shaking. I suddenly wanted to cry. I had no idea what I had done. I had no sense of victory, only of guilt, and I stood shocked and motionless with my sword still embedded in the dead man's throat on which the first flies were already settling. I could not move. A bird screamed in the high leaves, then Gwlyddyn's strong arm was around my shoulders and tears were streaming down my face. “You're a good man, Derfel,” Gwlyddyn said and I turned to him and held him like a child clinging to a father. “Well done,” he said again and again, 'well done." He patted me clumsily until at last I sniffed back my tears.

  “I'm sorry,” I heard myself saying.

  “Sorry?” he laughed. “For what? Hywel always said you were the best he ever trained and I should have believed him. You're fast. Now come, we have to see what we've won.” I took my victim's sword scabbard that was made of willow-stiffened leather and found it fitted Hywel's sword tolerably well, then we searched the two bodies for what little plunder we could find: an unripe apple, an old coin worn smooth, two cloaks, the weapons, some leather thongs and a bone-handled knife. Gwlyddyn debated whether we should go back and fetch the two horses, then decided we did not have the time. I did not care. My vision might be blurred by tears, but I was alive and I had killed a man and I had defended my King and suddenly I was deliriously happy as Gwlyddyn led me back to the frightened fugitives and raised my arm as a sign that I had fought well.

  “You made enough noise, the two of you,” Morgan snarled. “We'll have half Siluria on our heels soon. Now come! Move!”

  Nimue did not seem interested in my victory, but Lunete wanted to hear all about it and in the telling I exaggerated both the enemy and the fight, and Lunete's admiration engendered even more exaggeration. She had her arm in mine again and I glanced at her dark-eyed face and wondered why I had never really noticed just how beautif
ul she was. Like Nimue she had a wedge-shaped face, but where Nimue's was full of a wary knowledge Lunete's was soft with a teasing warmth, and her closeness gave me new confidence as we walked on through the long afternoon until at last we turned east towards the hills of which Caer Cadarn stood like an outrider.

  One hour later we stood at the edge of the woods that faced Caer Cadarn. It was late in the day, but we were in midsummer and the sun was still high in the sky and its lovely gentle light was flooding the western ramparts of Caer Cadarn with a green glow. We were a mile away from the fortress, but still close enough to see the yellow palisades atop the ramparts, close enough to see that no guards stood on those walls and no smoke rose from the small settlement inside.

  But nor was there any enemy in sight, and that decided Morgan to cross the open land and climb the western path to the King's fortress. Gwlyddyn argued that we should stay in the forest till nightfall, or else go to the nearby settlement of Lindinis, but Gwlyddyn was a carpenter and Morgan a high-born lady, so he surrendered to her wishes.

  We moved out into the pastureland and our shadows stretched long in front of us. The grass had been cropped short by deer or cattle, yet it was soft and lush underfoot. Nimue, who still seemed to be in a pain-haunted trance, slipped off her borrowed shoes and paced barefoot. A hawk sailed overhead and then a hare, startled by our sudden appearance, sprang out of a grassy hollow and raced nimbly away. We followed a path edged with cornflowers, ox-eyes, ragweed and dogwood. Behind us, shadowed by the sun's western slant, the woods looked dark. We were tired and ragged, but journey's end was in sight and some among us even appeared cheerful. We were bringing Mordred back to his birthplace, back to Dumnonia's royal hill, but before we were even halfway to that glorious green refuge, the enemy appeared behind us.

  Gundleus's war-band appeared. Not just the horsemen who had ridden to Ynys Wydryn in the morning, but his spearmen too. Gundleus must have known all along where we would go and so he had brought his surviving cavalrymen and over a hundred spearmen to this sacred place of Dumnonia's kings. And even if he had not been forced to pursue the baby King, then Gundleus would still have come to Caer Cadarn, for he wanted nothing less than the crown of Dumnonia, and Caer Cadarn was where that crown was bestowed upon the ruler's head. Who held Caer Cadarn held Dumnonia, the old saying went, and who held Dumnonia held Britain.

  The Silurian horsemen spurred ahead of their spearmen. It would take them only a few minutes to reach us and I knew that none of us, not even the swiftest runners, could reach the long slopes of the fortress before those horsemen swept around us with slashing steel and stabbing spears. I went to Nimue's side and saw that her thin face was drawn and tired, and her remaining eye bruised and tearful. “Nimue?” I said.

  “It's all right, Derfel.” She seemed annoyed that I wanted to take care of her. She was mad, I decided. Of all the living who had survived this terrible day, she had survived the worst experience of all and it had driven her to a place I could neither follow nor understand. “I do love you,” I said, trying to touch her soul with tenderness.

  “Me? Not Lunete?” Nimue said angrily. She was not looking at me, but towards the fortress, while I turned and stared at the approaching horsemen who had spread into a long line like men intent on flushing game. Their cloaks lay on their horses' rumps, their scabbards hung down beside their dangling boots, and the sun glinted on spear-points and lit the banner of the fox. Gundleus rode beneath the banner, the iron helmet with its fox-tail crest on his head. Ladwys was beside him, a sword in her hand, while Tanaburs, his long robe flapping, rode a grey horse close beside his King. I was going to die, I thought, on the day that I had become a man. That realization seemed very cruel.

  “Run!” Morgan suddenly shouted, 'run!" I thought she had panicked, and I did not want to obey her for I thought it would be nobler to stand and die like a man than be cut down from behind as a fugitive. Then I saw she was not panicking and that Caer Cadarn was not deserted after all, but that the gates had opened and a stream of men was running and riding down the path. The horsemen were dressed like Gundleus's riders, only these men bore the dragon shields of Mordred on their arms. We ran. I dragged Nimue along by the arm while the handful of Dumnonian horse spurred towards us. There were a dozen riders, not many, but enough to check the advance of Gundleus's men, while behind the horsemen came a band of Dumnonian spearmen.

  “Fifty spears,” Gwlyddyn said. He had been counting the rescue party. “We can't beat them with fifty,” he added grimly, 'but we might make safety."

  Gundleus was making the same deduction and now he led his horsemen in a wide curve that would lead them behind the approaching Dumnonian spearmen. He wanted to cut off our retreat for once he had assembled his enemies in one place he could kill us all whether we numbered seventy or seven. Gundleus had the advantage of numbers and, by coming down from their fortress, the Dumnonians had sacrificed their one advantage of height.

  The Dumnonian horsemen thundered past us, their horses' hooves cutting great chunks of turf from the lush pasture. These were not the fabled horsemen of Arthur, the armoured men who struck home like thunderbolts, but lightly armed scouts who would normally dismount before going into battle, but now they formed a protective screen between us and the Silurian spearmen. A moment later our own spearmen arrived and made their shield-wall. That wall gave us all a new confidence, a confidence that veered towards recklessness when we saw who led the rescue party. It was Owain, mighty Owain, king's champion and the greatest fighter in all

  Britain. We had thought Owain was far to the north, fighting alongside the men of Gwent in the mountains of Powys, yet here he was at Caer Cadarn.

  Yet, in sober truth, Gundleus still held the advantage. We were twelve horsemen, fifty spearmen and thirty tired fugitives who were gathered in an open place where Gundleus had gathered almost twice as many horsemen and twice as many spearmen.

  The sun was still bright. It would be two hours before twilight and four before it was full dark and that gave Gundleus more than enough time to finish his slaughter, though first he tried to persuade us with words. He rode forward, splendid on his sweat-foamed horse and with his shield held upside down as a sign of truce. “Men of Dumnonia,” he called, 'give me the child and I will go!" No one answered. Owain had hidden himself in the centre of our shield-wall so that Gundleus, seeing no leader, addressed us all.

  “It's a maimed child!” the Silurian King called. “Cursed by the Gods. You think any good fortune can attend a country ruled by a crippled king? You want your harvests blighted? You want your children born sick? You want your cattle to die of a murrain? You want the Saxons to be lords of this land? What else does a crippled king bring but ill fortune?”

  Still no one answered though, God knows, enough men in our hastily aligned ranks must have feared that Gundleus spoke the truth.

  The Silurian King lifted the helmet from his long hair and smiled at our plight. “You may all live,” he promised, 'so long as you give me the child.“ He waited for an answer that did not come. ”Who leads you?" he finally asked.

  “I do!” Owain at last pushed through the ranks to take his place in front of our shield-line.

  “Owain.” Gundleus recognized him, and I thought I saw a flicker of fear in Gundleus's eyes. Like us he had not known that Owain had returned to the heart of Dumnonia. Yet Gundleus was still confident of victory even though he must have known that with Owain among his enemies that victory would be much harder. “Lord Owain,” Gundleus said giving Dumnonia's champion his proper title, 'son of Eilynon and grandson of Culwas. I salute you!“ Gundleus raised his spear tip towards the sun. ”You have a son, Lord Owain."

  “Many men have sons,” Owain answered carelessly. “What is it to you?”

  “Do you want your boy to be fatherless?” Gundleus asked. “Do you want your lands wasted? Your home burned? Do you want your wife to be my men's plaything?”

  “My wife,” Owain said, 'could outfight all your men, and you too. Y
ou want playthings, Gundleus? Go back to your whore' he jerked his chin towards Ladwys — 'and if you won't share your whore with your men then Dumnonia can spare Siluria a few lonely ewes." Owain's defiance cheered us. He looked indomitable with his massive spear, long sword and iron-plated shield. He always fought bare headed, disdaining a helmet, and his hugely muscled arms were tattooed with Dumnonia's dragon and his own symbol of a long-tusked boar.

  “Yield me the child.” Gundleus ignored the insults, knowing they were merely the defiance expected of a man facing battle. “Give me the crippled King!”

  “Give me your whore, Gundleus,” Owain retorted. “You're not man enough for her. Give her to me and you can go in peace.”

  Gundleus spat. “The bards will sing of your death, Owain. The song of the pig-sticking.” Owain thrust his huge spear butt-first into the soil. “Here the pig stands, Gundleus ap Meilyr, King of Siluria,” he shouted, 'and here the pig will either die or piss on your corpse. Now go!" Gundleus smiled, shrugged and turned his horse away. He also turned his shield the right side up, letting us know that we would have a fight.