The Winter King twc-1

by Bernard Cornwell

  “The Bretwalda,” Therdig said, 'is some hours from here. Can you give me some reason, toad, why I should disturb his day with news that a plague of rats, mice and grubs have crawled into his land?"

  “We bring the Bretwalda more gold, Therdig,” I said, 'than you can dream of. Gold for your men, for your wives, for your daughters, even enough for your slaves. Is that reason enough?"

  “Show me, toad.”

  It was a risk, but Arthur willingly took it, taking Therdig and six of his men back to the mules and there revealing the great hoard stowed in the sacks. The risk was that Therdig might decide the fortune was worth a fight there and then, but we outnumbered him, and the sight of Arthur's men on their big horses was a fearsome deterrent, so he merely took three gold coins and said he would report our presence to the Bretwalda. “You will wait at the Stones,” he ordered us. “Be there by evening and my King shall come to you in the morning.” The command told us that Aelle must have been warned of our approach and must also have guessed what our business was. “You may stay at the Stones in peace,” Therdig told us, 'until the Bretwalda decides your fate."

  That evening, for it took us all afternoon to reach the Stones, was the first time I ever saw the great ring. Merlin had often spoken of them, and Nimue had heard of their power, but no one knew who had made them or why the great dressed boulders were arrayed in their towering circle. Nimue was sure that only the Gods could have made such a place and so she chanted prayers as we approached the grey, lonely monoliths whose evening shadows stretched dark and long across the pale grassland. A ditch surrounded the Stones that were formed into a great circle of pillars with other stones forming lintels above, while inside that massive and crude arcade were more vast upright rocks that stood close around a slab like altar. There were plenty of other stone circles in Britain, some even larger in their circumference, but none of such mystery and majesty and all of us were awed and silent as we approached. Nimue cast her spells, then told us it was safe to cross the ditch and so we wandered in wonder among these boulders of the Gods. Lichens grew thick on the Stones, some of which had canted or even fallen over the long years, while others were deeply carved with Roman names and numerals. Gereint had held the lordship of these Stones, an office devised by Uther to reward the man responsible for holding our eastern border against the Saxons, though now a new man would have to take the title and try to thrust Aelle back beyond burned Durocobrivis. It was shameful, Nimue told me, that Aelle had demanded to meet us here, so deep inside Dumnonia.

  There were woods in a valley a mile to the south and we used the mules to fetch enough timber to make a fire that burned bright through all that ghost-haunted night. More fires burned just beyond our eastern skyline, evidence that the Saxons had followed us. It was a nervous night. Our fire burned like a blaze of Beltain, but the flame-shadows on the stones still unnerved us. Nimue cast spells of safety around the ditch and that precaution calmed our men, but the picketed horses whinnied and trampled the turf all night long. Arthur suspected they could smell the Saxon war dogs, but Nimue was certain that the spirits of the dead were whirling all about us. Our sentries gripped their spear-shafts and challenged every wind that sighed across the grave mounds surrounding the Stones, but no dog, ghoul or warrior disturbed us, though few of our number slept.

  Arthur slept not at all. At one point in the night he asked me to walk with him and I paced beside him around the outer circle of big stones. He walked without speaking for a while, his head bare to the stars.

  “I was here once before,” he broke his silence abruptly.

  “When, Lord?” I asked.

  “Ten years ago. Maybe eleven.” He shrugged as though the number of years was not important. “Merlin brought me here.” He fell silent again and I said nothing for I sensed from his last words that this place held a special place in his memory. It did too, for he at last stopped pacing and pointed toward the grey rock that lay like an altar at the heart of the Stones. “It was there, Derfel, that Merlin gave me Caledfwlch.”

  I glanced down at the sword's cross-hatched scabbard. “A noble gift, Lord,” I said.

  “A heavy one, Derfel. It came with a burden.” He plucked my arm so that we continued walking. “He gave it to me on condition that I did what he ordered me to do, and I obeyed him. I went to Benoic and I learned from Ban what a king's duties are. I learned that a king is only as good as the poorest man under his rule. That was Ban's lesson.”

  “It wasn't a lesson that Ban learned himself,” I said bitterly, thinking how Ban had ignored his people to enrich Ynys Trebes.

  Arthur smiled. “Some men are better at knowing than doing, Derfel. Ban was very wise, but not practical. I have to be both.”

  “To be a king?” I dared to ask, for stating such an ambition was counter to everything Arthur claimed about his destiny.

  But Arthur took no offence at my words. “To be a ruler,” he said. He had stopped again and was staring over the dark cloaked shapes of his sleeping men at the stone in the circle's centre, and to me it seemed as if the slab of rock shimmered in the moonlight, or perhaps that was just my heightened imagination.

  “Merlin made me strip naked and stand on that stone all night long,” Arthur went on. “There was rain on the wind and it was cold. He chanted spells and made me hold the sword at arm's length and keep it there. I remember my arm was like fire and then at last it went numb, but still he would not let me drop Caledfwlch. ”Hold it!“ he shouted at me, ”hold it,“ and I stood there, quivering while he summoned the dead to witness his gift. And they came, Derfel, rank on rank of the dead, warriors with empty eyes and rusted helmets who rose from the Otherworld to see the sword given to me.” He shook his head at the memory. “Or perhaps I just dreamed those worm-eaten men. I was young, you see, and very impressionable, and Merlin does know how to put the fear of the Gods into young minds. Once he'd scared me with the throng of dead witnesses, though, he told me how to lead men, how to find warriors who need leaders and how to fight battles. He told me my destiny, Derfel.” He fell silent again, his long face very grim in the moonlight. Then he smiled ruefully. “All nonsense.” His last two words had been spoken so softly that I had almost not heard them. “Nonsense?” I asked, unable to hide my disapproval.

  “I am to yield Britain back to her Gods,” Arthur said, mocking the duty by the tone of his voice.

  “You will, Lord,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Merlin wanted a strong arm to hold a good sword,” he said, 'but what the Gods want, Derfel, I do not know. If they want Britain, why do they need me? Or Merlin? Do Gods need men? Or are we like dogs barking for masters who don't want to listen?"

  “We aren't dogs,” I said. “We're the creatures of the Gods. They must have a purpose for us.”

  “Must they? Maybe we just make them laugh.”

  “Merlin says we've lost touch with the Gods,” I said stubbornly.

  “Just as Merlin has lost touch with us,” Arthur said firmly. “You saw how he ran from Durnovaria that night you returned from Ynys Trebes. Merlin is too busy, Derfel. Merlin is chasing his Treasures of Britain and what we do in Dumnonia is of no consequence to him. I could make a great kingdom for Mordred, I could establish justice, I could bring peace, I could have Christians and pagans dancing in the moonlight together and none of that would interest Merlin. Merlin only yearns for the moment when all of it is given back to the Gods, and when that moment comes he'll demand I give Caledfwlch back to him. That was his other condition. I could take the sword of the Gods, he said, so long as I gave it back when he needed it.”

  He had spoken with a trace of mockery that had disturbed me. “Don't you believe in Merlin's dream?” I asked.

  “I believe Merlin is the wisest man in Britain,” Arthur said seriously, 'and that he knows more than I might ever hope to know. I also know that my fate is twisted into his, just as yours, I think, is twisted into Nimue's, but I also think that Merlin was bored from the moment he was born, so Merlin is doin
g what the Gods do. He is amusing himself at our expense. Which means, Derfel, that when the moment comes to return Caledfwlch it will be at a time when I need the sword most."

  “So what will you do?”

  “I have no idea. None.” He seemed to find that thought amusing for he smiled, then put a hand on my shoulder. “Go and sleep, Derfel. I need your tongue tomorrow and I don't want it slurred by tiredness.” I left him, and somehow I did snatch a few moments' sleep in the moon-cast shadow of a looming stone, though before I slept I lay thinking about that far-off night when Merlin had made Arthur's arm ache with the weight of the sword and his soul heavy with the greater burden of fate. Why had Merlin chosen Arthur, I wondered, for it seemed to me now that Arthur and Merlin were opposed. Merlin believed that chaos could only be defeated by harnessing the powers of mystery, while Arthur believed in the powers of men. It could be, I thought, that Merlin had trained Arthur to rule men so as to leave himself free to rule the dark powers, but I also realized, however dimly, that the moment might come when we would all have to choose between them and I feared that moment. I prayed it would never come. Then I slept until the sun rose to lance the shadow of a single stone pillar that stood isolated outside the circle straight into the very heart of the Stones where we tired warriors guarded a kingdom's ransom. We drank water, ate hard bread, then buckled on our swords before spreading the gold on the dew-wet grass beside the altar stone. “What's to stop Aelle taking the gold and continuing his war?” I asked Arthur as we waited for the Saxon's arrival. Aelle, after all, had taken gold from us before and that had not stopped him from burning Durocobrivis.

  Arthur shrugged. He was wearing his spare armour, a coat of Roman mail that was dented and scarred from frequent fights. He wore the heavy mail under one of his white cloaks. “Nothing,” he answered,

  'except what little honour he might have. Which is why we might have to offer him more than gold."

  “More?” I asked, but Arthur did not reply because, on the dawn-blazoned eastern skyline, the Saxons had appeared.

  They came in a long line spread across the horizon with their war drums beating and their spearmen arrayed for battle, though their weapons were tipped by leaves to show that they meant us no immediate harm. Aelle led them. He was the first of the two men I ever met who claimed the title Bretwalda. The other came later and was to give us more trouble, but Aelle was trouble enough. He was a tall man with a flat, hard face and dark eyes that revealed none of his thoughts. His beard was black, his cheeks were scarred from battle and two fingers were missing from his right hand. He wore a coat of black cloth that was belted with leather, boots of leather, an iron helmet on which bull horns were mounted, and over it all a bearskin cloak that he dropped when the heat of the day became too much for such a flamboyant garment. His banner was a blood-daubed bull's skull held aloft on a spear-shaft. His war-band numbered two hundred men, maybe a few more, and over half those men had great war dogs leashed with leather ropes. Behind the warriors was a horde of women, children and slaves. There were more than enough Saxons to overwhelm us now, but Aelle had given his word that we were at peace, at least until he had decided our fate, and his men made no hostile show. Their line stopped outside the circling ditch while Aelle, his council, an interpreter and a pair of wizards came to meet Arthur. The wizards had hair stiffened into spikes with dung and wore ragged cloaks of wolfskin. When they whirled around to say their charms, the legs, tails and faces of the wolves flared out from their painted bodies. They shouted those charms as they came closer, nullifying any magic we might be working against their leader. Nimue crouched behind us and chanted her own counter charms The two leaders weighed each other up. Arthur was taller and Aelle broader. Arthur's face was striking, but Aelle's was terrifying. It was implacable, the face of a man who had come from beyond the sea to carve out a kingdom in a strange land, and he had made that kingdom with a savage and direct brutality.

  “I should kill you now, Arthur,” he said, 'and have one less enemy to destroy." His wizards, naked beneath their moth-eaten skins, crouched behind him. One chewed a mouthful of earth, the other rolled his eyes while Nimue, her empty eye-socket bared, hissed at them. The struggle between Nimue and the wizards was a private war that the two leaders ignored.

  “The time will come, Aelle,” Arthur said, 'when maybe we shall meet in battle. But for now I offer you peace." I had half expected Arthur to bow to Aelle who was, unlike Arthur, a king, but Arthur treated the Bretwalda as an equal and Aelle accepted the treatment without protest.

  “Why?” Aelle asked bluntly. Aelle used no circumlocutions like we British favoured. I came to notice that difference between ourselves and the Saxons. The British thought in curves, like the intricate whorls of their jewellery, while Saxons were blunt and straight, as crude as their heavy gold brooches and chunky neck chains. Britons rarely broached a subject headlong, but talked around it, wrapping it with hints and allusions, always looking for manoeuvre, but Saxons thrust subtlety aside. Arthur once claimed I had that same Saxon straightforwardness and I think he meant it as a compliment. Arthur ignored Aelle's question. “I thought we had peace already. We had an agreement sealed with gold.”

  Aelle's face betrayed no shame at having broken the truce. He merely shrugged, as though a broken peace was a small thing. “So if one truce fails, why buy another?” he asked.

  “Because I have a quarrel with Gorfyddyd,” Arthur replied, adopting the Saxon's blunt manner, 'and I seek your help in that quarrel."

  Aelle nodded. “But if I help you destroy Gorfyddyd I make you stronger. Why should I do that?”

  “Because if you do not then Gorfyddyd will destroy me and he will then be stronger.” Aelle laughed, displaying a mouth of rotting teeth. “Does a dog care which of two rats it kills?” he asked. I translated that as does a dog care which stag it pulls down. It seemed more tactful and I noted that Aelle's interpreter, a British slave, did not tell his master.

  “No,” Arthur allowed, 'but the stags are not equal.“ Aelle's interpreter said the rats were not equal and I did not tell Arthur. ”At best, Lord Aelle,“ Arthur went on, ”I preserve Dumnonia and make Powys and Siluria my allies. But if Gorfyddyd wins he will unite Elmet, Rheged, Powys, Siluria and Dumnonia against you."

  “But you will also have Gwent on your side,” Aelle said. He was a shrewd man, and quick.

  “True, but so will Gorfyddyd if it comes to a war between the British and the Saxons.” Aelle grunted. The present situation, with the British fighting amongst themselves, served him best, but he knew that the British wars would eventually cease. Since it now seemed Gorfyddyd must win those wars soon, Arthur's presence gave him a way of prolonging his enemies' conflict. “So what do you want of me?” he asked. His wizards were now leaping up and down on all fours like human grasshoppers while Nimue was arranging pebbles on the ground. The pebbles' pattern must have disturbed the Saxon sorcerers for they began to utter small yelps of distress. Aelle ignored them.

  “I want you to give Dumnonia and Gwent three moons of peace,” Arthur said.

  “You're only buying peace?” Aelle roared the words and even Nimue was startled. The Saxon threw a gloved hand towards his war-band that squatted with their women, dogs and slaves beyond the shallow ditch. “What does an army do in peace? Tell me that! I promised them more than gold. I promised them land! I promised them slaves! I promised them weal has blood, and you give me peace?” He spat. “In the name of Thor, Arthur, I will give you peace, but the peace will be across your bones and my men will take turns with your wife. That's my peace!” He spat on the turf, then looked at me. “Tell your master, dog,” he said, 'that half my men have just arrived in boats. They have no harvest gathered and no means to feed their folk through winter. We cannot eat gold. If we don't take land and grain, then we starve. What good is peace to a starved man?"

  I translated for Arthur, leaving out the more egregious insults.

  A look of pain crossed Arthur's face. Aelle saw the look, trans
lated it as weakness and so turned scornfully away. “I will give you two hours' start, vermin,” he called over his shoulder, 'then I shall pursue you."

  “Ratae,” Arthur said, without even waiting for me to translate Aelle's threat. The Saxon turned back. He said nothing, but just stared into Arthur's face. The stench of his bearskin robe was appalling; a mix of sweat, dung and grease. He waited.

  “Ratae,” Arthur said again. “Tell him it can be taken. Tell him it is full of all the things he desires. Tell him the land it guards will be his.”

  Ratae was the fortress that protected Gorfyddyd's eastern most border with the Saxons and if Gorfyddyd lost that fortress then the Saxons moved twenty miles closer to Powys's heartland. I translated. It took me some time to identify Ratae to Aelle, but at last he understood. He was not happy for it seemed Ratae was a formidable Roman fortress that Gorfyddyd had strengthened with a massive earth wall.

  Arthur explained that Gorfyddyd had taken the garrison's best spearmen to add to the army he had collected for his invasion of Gwent and Dumnonia. He did not need to explain that Gorfyddyd had only risked that move because of the peace he believed he had purchased from Aelle, a peace that Arthur was now outbidding. Arthur revealed that a Christian community at Ratae had built a monastery just outside the fort's earth walls and the comings and goings of the monks had worn a passage through the ramparts. The fortress commander, he explained, was one of Gorfyddyd's rare Christians and had given his blessing to the monastery.

  “How does he know?” Aelle demanded of me.

  “Tell him I have a man with me, a man from Ratae, who knows how the monastery can be approached and who is willing to serve as a guide. Tell him I ask only that the man be rewarded with his life.” I realized then who the stranger must be who had been walking with Hygwydd. I realized, too, that Arthur had known he would have to sacrifice Ratae even before he left Durnovaria. Aelle demanded to know more about the traitor and Arthur told how the man had deserted Powys and come to Dumnonia seeking revenge because his wife had abandoned him for one of Gorfyddyd's chieftains.