Sign of the White Foal

by Chris Thorndycroft

  Arthur called down for Cei and Gualchmei and they came up to escort his sister away. As she passed Arthur, she gave him a glare that he would remember until his dying day. “You, of all people should understand,” she said. “You, a bastard of the line of Cunedag. Why do you serve them? They’ll never accept you as one of their own.”

  “I do not require them to,” said Arthur. “But I serve them nonetheless for they are my family.”

  As she was led away, Menw approached the cauldron and placed his hands on its beaded rim. “Such a simple thing,” he said. “And yet so very powerful.”

  “Is it truly the cauldron of legend?” Arthur asked.

  The bard shrugged as he examined its decorative panels, running his fingers over the faces of gods. “It is old, very old, I’ll grant it that. Who knows what its true purpose was? Perhaps it was just something our ancestors used to dilute wine in. It doesn’t really matter, does it? The minds of men have given it a purpose.”

  “And now that purpose must end. Should we destroy it?”

  “No. Not yet. The Pendraig must receive it into his keeping. Only then will the people learn not to fear it. Only then will its spell be broken.”

  Once the prisoners had been secured and the victors had gorged themselves on salted meats, hard tack and ale from Cair Dugannu’s stores, Cei held a council in the upper chambers. They stood around the cauldron and discussed what their next move was to be.

  “Somebody must ride south to bring word of our victory to the Pendraig,” said Arthur. “If we can make it known that we now hold the fortress and the cauldron, perhaps we can end this war before it claims too many more lives.”

  “You should go, Arthur,” said Cei. “It was your plan. This victory is your doing. My father will believe you.” He glanced at the others. “We should remain here to hold this fortress against reprisal from the Gaels.”

  “I will accompany Arthur,” Menw said. “It is unfortunate that we cannot bring the cauldron with us but we shall have to somehow convince enemy and ally alike that this pointless war must end.”

  They ended their council and Arthur and Menw went down to the stables. The white foal who had followed them east had been admitted to the fortress and Arthur had seen him fed and stabled. He longed to ride him but knew the animal was still too young to be broken. One day, he told himself as he patted the foal’s neck. When all this is over we shall ride together, you and I.

  “Have you thought of giving him a name?” asked Menw as he saddled a dun filly, almost as if he had read Arthur’s thoughts.

  “I had originally thought to call him Mabon,” Arthur replied. “But after what Anna said to us, it just doesn’t feel appropriate. I’m thinking of Hengroen instead.”

  Menw smiled. “A fine old name.”

  Hengroen it was and Arthur said farewell to him and saddled a chestnut gelding. Before the noon sun reached its zenith, they rode out of Cair Dugannu and galloped across open fields in the direction of the Pass of Kings.

  Cadwallon

  The spears flew overhead as the two lines met in the tightness of the pass. They whickered through the air and fell like a rain of vipers into the midst of Cadwallon’s front ranks. Men fell screaming, transfixed by the dark shafts. And then, the lines met in an unholy rumble of thunder that echoed up the rocky crags on either side of the valley.

  Cadwallon sat with the mounted reserves behind the centre of the teulu. Before him the spears of his assembled auxiliaries prickled the air and beyond their tips crackled the carnage of the front ranks. Owain sat with him along with the mounted riders of Rhos. King Mor commanded the right flank while King Efiaun led the left.

  They had all followed his orders without question but he sorely missed Cunor’s experience in commanding the teulu. He had learned battle strategy as any royal youth had done and had even led his own cavalry wing in the wars with the Gaels ten years previously but commanding an entire teulu was the job of a penteulu, not a king.

  This battle had been thrust upon him before they were truly ready. They had reached the pass around noon of the day Meddyf had set out. They had made camp well within view of Meriaun’s campfires and tents. Early the following morning, Cadwallon had been in his tent discussing battle lines with his commanders when the horns began to blow indicating movement in the enemy camp.

  He had emerged to see Meriaun’s lines advancing through the valley pass, thick with Gaels and bolstered on their left by Elnaw of Docmaeling’s teulu and on their right by the lords of the Laigin Peninsula.

  Orders were given quickly to rouse the camp, send out the cavalry wings and cluster the auxiliaries in the centre of the valley to bear the brunt of the enemy’s advance.

  The pass was a narrow bottleneck and its steep and rocky sides forced the ranks together so they were short and deep. With no room to manoeuvre, it was all but impossible for the cavalry wings to curl around and outflank the enemy. It was equally impossible for Meriaun’s host to outflank them and it promised to be a long and bloody battle of attrition.

  As the chaos and calamity of war sounded all around him, Cadwallon desperately scanned the enemy ranks for signs of what he feared the most; the Cauldron-born. There appeared to be no woad-smeared skull-faces within the enemy host and Cadwallon allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. The battle could go either way but at least they would be facing men that could be killed.

  He wondered if that meant Cei and his companions had succeeded in their quest. He supposed that if they had, they had in all probability given their lives in doing so. If they ever made it out of this valley alive, Cadwallon promised the gods that those brave seven would be given the highest of posthumous honours. He would do that much for Cunor who had sent both his son and foster-son – my own half-brother, he remembered suddenly with a pang of guilt – on such a perilous quest.

  Where are you, Cunor? We need you now!

  After an hour of fighting, the brook that flowed through the valley became clogged with corpses, damming its red waters. It burst its banks and turned the green valley floor to a muddy, hellish mess.

  “The right of our front line is thinning,” Owain cautioned.

  Cadwallon cursed and gave the order for King Mor to lead his cavalry forward. The auxiliaries parted to let them through. Mor led them in a charge that broke deep into the left flank of the enemy and Cadwallon smiled to see the raven banner wavering above the carnage well behind Meriaun’s front lines.

  A bellow of horns that sounded to their left told them that Meriaun was responding to the sudden attack and the many coloured banners of the Laigin commotes rushed forward, cutting a swathe through the front lines and slamming into King Efiaun’s troops.

  “Damn!” said Owain. “Our left wing is crumbling! Efiaun is being overwhelmed!”

  “Draw them back!” said Cadwallon. “We cannot loose Efiaun!”

  “If we pull them back we lose our left flank! And that might lose us the battle. Meriaun has all his spearmen ready to fill the gap and close in on us.”

  “Then we must support Efiaun,” said Cadwallon, finding that his mouth had turned suddenly dry.

  He gave the orders and the long aurochs horns bellowed out the signal for the mounted reserves to move out. Owain ordered his own troops to accompany the Pendraig and the dragon banner rippled as it was carried aloft by the standard bearer amidst the streaming manes and tails of horses and the plumed helms of their riders.

  They swung left and crossed the stony brook which was treacherously deep now with its pinkish depths. Up ahead they could see Efiaun’s force dwindling as the wavering banners of the Laigin commotes cut their bloody vengeance through his ranks.

  “Venedotia!” bellowed Owain, sword raised as they thundered towards the havoc.

  It was a cry taken up by many voices. Cadwallon screamed it too but his voice was lost in the tumultuous crash of two lines of cavalry meeting.

  The hot, mad press of horses and warriors was intensely claustrophobic. The desperate hack and
slash was superseded only by the burning desire to press forward, to claim ground at all cost.

  But it was too hard. The enemy were too many. Even with the full brunt of the reserves, the teulu had only gained a few feet of bloody, trampled grass and now the enemy, recovered from the initial shock, were pushing forwards once more. Gaelic spearmen flanked the knot of horsemen and began to encircle them, stabbing at hamstrings and haunches.

  “We’ll all be slaughtered if we don’t get out of this!” Owain cried to Cadwallon over the awful din.

  “But if we retreat these dogs will harry us every step of the way!” Cadwallon replied. “We stand out ground! We hold this pass at all costs!”

  What else was there to do? They had traipsed all over Venedotia and everything, every alliance, every skirmish had led them to this point, to this pass. If they lost it he would lose his crown and if they won it… he would win everything. There could be no retreat, no second chances. No surrender.

  There was some great disturbance further along the line. Mounted warriors were charging the enemy, pushing through Cadwallon’s auxiliaries from the rear to get at the Gaels. Cadwallon craned his head to see and whooped with joy when he saw the banners of Eternion wavering above the newly arrived host.

  “Eternion is with us!” he cried to Owain. “Our uncle has sent his teulu!”

  The men voiced their elation despite the desperation of their situation. The enemy pressed hard against them, hemming them in on three sides, but help had arrived!

  Meriaun’s front lines fell back, driven apart by the wedge of Eternion’s cavalry. The pressure on Cadwallon’s left wing loosened considerably as the Laigin bannermen found themselves exposed to newly arrived and fresh horsemen. Their nerve began to crumble and, banner by banner, they retreated from the battle.

  “Do we push on?” Owain called to Cadwallon.

  “No!” Cadwallon replied. “They have given us a window through which we can escape! Fall back! Retreat to the brook so that we may regroup!”

  They turned their mounts and, stepping over the bodies of the fallen, headed back to the flooded brook. The auxiliaries, weary, wounded and severely reduced, fell in behind the retreating cavalry. Cadwallon turned in his saddle to make sure the enemy had not wheeled about and was following on their heels. They were not. The sun was sinking. The valley was clogged with the dead and everybody had had enough.

  Cadwallon spurred his horse into a gallop and found Cunor in the mass of Eternion’s horsemen. “Once again you come in the nick of time!” he cried. “And more welcome than you can ever know!”

  Cunor scanned the carnage of the valley. “Are you taking over my job, my lord?”

  “You can have it! If this battle has taught me anything it is that kings appoint penteulus for a reason. Still, I did not do too badly I hope? In the face of such odds? They came upon us by surprise and I was forced to act.”

  “I’m glad to hear it was not a battle of your choosing, lord. I was worried you had tried charge the enemy camp without me!”

  “There is still plenty more to be done, old friend! Meriaun waits beneath his standard while his forces regroup and plan their next assault. And that is what we must do. But tell me, Cunor, where is my wife?”

  Cunor led Cadwallon back to camp where Meddyf awaited astride her mare. She had never looked so beautiful to Cadwallon’s eyes. They both dismounted and embraced. Even when they kissed, she did not shrink from his bloodied armour.

  “You did it, my love,” he told her. “You brought us the help we so desperately needed and not a moment too soon!”

  “Etern took some convincing but we have reached an agreement,” Meddyf said.

  “I’m blessed to have such a wiley negotiator for a wife!”

  “His loyalty was not bought cheaply.”

  She was holding something back, he could tell. “What is it?”

  “Maelcon must marry one of Etern’s daughters. It was the only way.”

  Cadwallon was silent for a while. This was unexpected, and a bitter draught to swallow. That he should have to buy his uncle’s support like this! “Fine,” he said. “If that is what it took. You did well.”

  “The battle?”

  “Inconclusive. The arrival of Cunor broke their impending victory and they have retreated for now, as have we. We are at least now, evenly matched. It could become a nasty stalemate.”

  “The Cauldron-born?”

  “No sign of them.”

  “Then Cei…”

  “Must have succeeded. That is one victory, at least. We must pray for another.”

  Arthur

  As they crested the small rise on the grassy cape of the Heaps, Arthur and Menw were afforded a view of the carnage in the valley pass below them. If there had been any battle lines drawn then they had long since disintegrated into chaos. Knots of horsemen rode back and forth, cutting down fleeing footmen. Sheildmen clustered together and drove off riders with their spears. The valley was littered with the corpses of the slain. If there had been any victory won that day then it had been a costly one.

  Arthur could pick out many standards he recognised but all seemed to be fleeing, regrouping and retreating. He could see two camps; one directly below them which he assumed to be Meriaun’s as it held the northern section of the pass. In the distance he could pick out the white tents of another camp, smaller and vulnerable in the shadows of the rocky peaks. That had to be Cadwallon’s camp. He could see many banners fleeing towards it.

  “We’re too late,” he said. “The battle is over.”

  “If that is true then who are the victors?” Menw asked him.

  Arthur had no clue. The whole thing looked to be a shambles. “How do we get to Cadwallon without passing through that hell?”

  “We don’t,” Menw said. “We must go through it.”

  “Merion’s warriors will peg us for exactly who we are. The Gaels too.”

  “Not if we use out wits,” the bard replied.

  The sun’s dying flare caught the mountain peaks and stretched their shadows against the cliffs behind them as they descended into the valley and turned south. The stink of blood, iron and opened bowels hit them like a wall as they reached the valley floor. The flies and ravens had not yet begun to feast but it was only a matter of time. Up ahead, Arthur could see that the valley bottom was flooded, turned almost marshy by the swollen brook. Bodies floated in the distance.

  They plodded on, keeping their eyes ahead as a group of riders splashed past. Arthur forced himself not to make eye-contact. He focused on their goal; the cluster of tents in the hazy distance. Close, yet deceptively so for hundreds of obstacles lay in their way.

  “Hold!” bellowed a voice behind them and Arthur squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. The riders had wheeled around to inspect the youth and the old man closer. “You two,” said their leader; a swarthy man of middling years in a round, dented helm. “What company are you from?”

  “King Elnaw’s company, friend,” said Menw. “And yourselves?”

  “King Meriaun’s companions,” the warrior replied. He peered at Menw. “You’re a little long in the tooth for this game, aren’t you?”

  “I am a healer,” Menw replied. He nodded at Arthur. “This lad is my apprentice and bodyguard. We marched with the rest of Elnaw’s teulu but were delayed en route. One of the king’s bannermen had a nasty fall and I was ordered to remain and tend to him. Now, here we arrive at the battle with our work cut out for us.”

  “What’s in the bag?” the warrior asked, gesturing to the leather sack Menw carried on his saddle behind him. He had stripped himself of all identifying marks of his bardic order before they had set out from Cair Dugannu, including his crane-skin bag, replacing it with a crude leather sack. “My healing herbs, my knives and my tools,” he replied.

  “You’re in luck,” said the warrior, “or some poor buggers are, I should say. “We’ve a score wounded we dragged from the front lines across the valley here. They sorely need your skills a
fter Etern’s cavalry trampled and hacked their way through them, damn the traitorous bastard to hell!”

  “Etern?” Menw asked. “He has switched sides?”

  “Aye, he was supposed to close the trap behind Cadwallon’s teulu once it had entered the valley but some devilish bargaining has been going on. His cavalry charged in at the last moment and shattered our lines. It all fell apart after that. Come, we’ll escort you.”

  Arthur glanced at Menw, knowing that they had no choice but to follow the warriors in the opposite direction to Cadwallon’s camp. It had been some quick thinking on Menw’s part that had saved their necks but he ground his teeth in frustration all the same.

  They were led to a makeshift camp on a high bit of ground. Several footmen had been stripping the dead of arms and armour and were piling them up. Nearby, several wounded were lying on the mud, cloaks bundled up under their heads. The warriors dismounted and the chief of them led Menw and Arthur over to the injured men.

  “Do what you can for them, healer,” he said. “If there is no hope then just give the word and I’ll make a merciful end of it.” He tapped the knife at his belt.

  “As you say,” said Menw, approaching the row of moaning wretches.

  “Don’t you need your bag of tricks?” the warrior asked.

  “Ah, yes,” said Menw. He turned to Arthur. “Run and fetch it for me lad, eh?”

  Arthur tried to read the expression in the eyes of the old bard but could not fathom it. He turned and walked over to their horses. He heard Menw talking to one of the wounded, trying to soothe him and take his mind off the pain.

  “The gods must look favourably upon me,” said the stricken man between gasps of pain. “That they send King Enniaun’s old bard to tend to me!”

  “What was that?” the warrior demanded. “Enniaun’s bard?”

  “The poor wretch is raving,” said Menw.

  “I saw you once before,” the wounded man went on. “At Cair Dugannu when I was a lad. It was Samhain and you played your harp in honour of the dead.”