by Mary Stewart
Alexander was gasping for breath now, dragging air into his lungs with snorting gulps past teeth bared in the grin of extreme effort. He spurred his horse savagely, driving it forward against the roan, just as the Cornishman, recovering, knocked the prince’s sword high and wide, driving in below it for the final, killing stroke.
It missed by a hair’s breadth; by the breadth of the armoured strap on the prince’s shoulder, which it severed. Then Brand’s horse hurtled against Alexander’s, and Brand’s sword, metal screaming along metal, forced the Cornishman’s weapon aside and sliced past the armoured gorget and into the fellow’s throat. He fell with a crash to the gravel of the road, and his horse, whinnying with terror, whirled round and bolted into the woods, splashing the stones with blood as it went.
“You’re hurt, sir?”
Alexander, still caught up in the aftermath of the fighting, shook his head dazedly, while with unsteady hands he tried to slide the sword back into its sheath. “It’s his blood. It splashed. I owe you thanks, Brand. I believe he had me there. He’s dead, is he?”
“Yes, sir. They both are. There was no time for anything else.”
“I know. It can’t be helped. Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir, but Uwain’s hurt.”
“Badly?” He wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of a blood-smeared hand. The sun, just clear of the hilltops, blazed straight into his eyes, level and brilliant, blinding him. So few moments had passed in that desperate encounter. He swung himself out of the saddle, threw his bridle to Brand, and ran to where Uwain was lying.
The fallen man had a cut in his side across the hip-bone. When they had washed the worst of the blood off – there was a trickle of spring water in the bank nearby – the wound looked clean, but it was deep and jagged, and after they had dressed and bound it as best they could, still bled sluggishly.
“The ferry,” said Alexander urgently. He was kneeling at Uwain’s side, holding a cup of water to the wounded man’s lips. “If we can get him down to the ferry, and across as far as the tavern you spoke of –”
“Look there,” said Brand, pointing.
Alexander stood up. The estuary stretched gleaming and bright, the mist clearing in the sun. The brown sail was still there, but it was almost at the farther shore.
Alexander stared. “He was called back? I don’t see anyone waiting there.”
“No, sir.” Brand was contemptuous. “He went back. He must ’a seen the fighting, and such as he won’t come near till all’s done. He won’t come over again till he sees us gone. So what’s to do now?”
Alexander glanced down at Uwain. The latter was trying to drag himself to his feet, protesting that the wound was nothing, he had had worse at hunting, he was good for a day’s hard riding … but the prince put out a hand to press him back.
“No, wait. Rest there a minute.” Then to Brand: “We must get rid of the bodies. If their horses are still about, turn them loose. If other travellers come this way, we don’t want questions asked, not yet. At least you needn’t go into Cornwall now. This one first. You take the heels. That way, I think.”
Between them they dragged the dead men off the road into the woods. There was a quarry, overgrown with brambles and bushes, where road-metal had once been dug, and here they found a shallow ditch where the bodies could lie. With daggers and their hands they scrabbled loose stones and gravel to cover them. The roan horse, grazing near, they caught, stripping it of its harness, and sending it off with a thwack from the flat of a sword. The other horse had gone. Then they went back to Uwain, and helped him into the saddle.
There was still no sign of the ferry, “But all the better,” said Alexander, who had had time to think. “If we crossed to find the tavern and lodge there, the news of this would run the length and breadth of Dumnonia almost before nightfall. As it is, all the ferryman saw was a skirmish at the edge of the woods, and when he does bring himself to come over, I doubt if he’ll look further.”
“And Uwain?”
“There was a good-looking tavern in Blestium. We’ll get him back there – you can manage that far, Uwain? Good man. We’ll get you there and get that leg seen to. We can lie up there for a day or two, to see how it does.”
“Your lady mother won’t be too pleased.”
“That’s true, but you can tell her how it happened. There was no chance to do otherwise. It’s like the first fight – as if a sort of fate was at work. And it would have been my fate, had it not been for your sword, Brand. See that you tell my mother that, Uwain.”
“I will, Prince. But you? Are you not going home with us?”
“Not yet. I – my mother will know where I am going.”
“Not into Cornwall?” said Brand sharply.
“No, no. I promised not to cross that border. Just tell her that I follow my fortune. She will understand.”
It is possible that all three of them added, to themselves, the simple prayer I hope. But though the two troopers did exchange a doubtful look, they said no more. And at length, in the light of a crimson sunset, they came in sight of the Roman bridge, and the welcome lights of the tavern pricking out yellow in the dusk.
13
The tavern was comfortable, and a doctor was speedily found for Uwain. The latter’s wound, once properly dressed, was declared to be clean and already on the way to healing. The three of them stayed there for two days, until the doctor gave Uwain leave to travel, then they set out on the ride home to Craig Arian.
But when they came to the fork in the road where a steep track led westward into the valley of the Lesser Wye, Alexander, halting his horse, bade the other two farewell.
“For,” he said, “once embarked in this adventure, I must finish it. My mother will understand. It’s not done yet.” He hesitated. “There’s something she told me which I may not talk about, not yet, but you may give her this message; that I have set out to do what she would have me do, only a little sooner. Tell her that I’m riding north to seek out my cousin Drustan at Caer Mord, and I’ll send a message to her as soon as I can. It may be that I will ride this way with Drustan, when he goes back to Camelot, and I’ll see her then.”
Brand and Uwain tried to persuade him to go home first with them, and take the northward route after he had spoken again with the Princess Anna, but Alexander (who, once free of the leading-strings, had no intention of letting his mother tie them on again) refused to listen, repeating the message to his mother, and then turning his horse’s head to the north, and leaving them shaking their heads and staring after him.
So he rode north alone, with a light heart. He was seventeen, he had fought in two sharp fights and emerged scatheless from both. He had a good horse, a pouch of money, a new suit of clothing, his mother’s (possible) blessing and his father’s sword, and it was May, with the sun high in the heavens and the early morning dew sparkling on the grass. Small wonder that his spirits were high, and that he sang as he rode. He was young and strong and on his way to seek his fortune. And it was extra fortune that he could, in that year of Our Lord five hundred and twenty-three, seek it at the hand of Drustan, one of the honoured Companions of Arthur, High King of all Britain.
As for his first purpose, revenge for his father’s long-ago murder, and the justice he had been so eager, only a few days back, to seek on King March, he was no longer thinking about that. The day’s promise and the day’s adventure were what filled his mind. When the road he followed led downhill, and he could see, through the trees, the gleam of water which promised a ford, his thoughts and hopes immediately sprang to the tales he had heard, of fording-places guarded by outlaws lying in wait for travellers to rob. As his horse, scenting water, pricked its ears and quickened its pace, he loosened the sword in its scabbard and rode downhill as if to a happy meeting.
What he did find was exactly what he might have expected: a shallow crossing, where the river lisped across its stony bed, and, above the flood markings on the farther bank, the workshop of a wayside smi
th with the anvil outside, and beside it, crumbling with age but still recognisable, the image of Myrddin the god of going, with an offering of fruit at his feet.
The smith, who was seated against the bole of a nearby oak, with the remains of his dinner wrapped away in a kerchief on the grass, cast an expert’s eye over Alexander’s horse as it splashed through the ford towards him, and then stayed where he was.
“Good day to you, master. You’ll have no need of me today, I see. Are you going far?”
Such men are eager collectors and purveyors of news, and Alexander, even if he had seen any need for caution, was too full of his new freedom to keep it to himself.
“As far north as need be. I go to join Sir Drustan at Caer Mord in Northumbria.”
“Then you’ve a long road ahead of you, young master, but, thanks be to Arthur’s men that ride the roads, it’ll be a safe one.” His little black eyes, twinkling under shaggy brows, were busily taking in Alexander’s clothing, his lack of blazon, the good housing of his horse. “And where are you from, young sir?”
“From Blestium.” No need for more, to have every traveller knowing that the young lord of Craig Arian took such a long journey alone. “You’ll know the best road, smith?”
“I should. I keep my eyes and ears open,” said the smith, “and I hear all that passes. You’d best keep to the old road, the Romansway, they call it. You can strike it at Viroconium, and then it’s straight north into Rheged, and the road east from Brocavum. It’s a long road, master, but you’ve a good horse there. Take care of him and he’ll take care of you.”
“Of course. But – Rheged? So far north? I thought to head north-east long before that.”
“As to that, there’s a road setting eastward not more than four days’ ride from here, but it’s a bad one, that I do know, and after that there’s no way through the mountains till you reach Rheged. You’d be better going by Rheged. But suit yourself, and God speed to you.” A gesture towards the Myrddin image at the forge’s doorway, and he turned to gather up the kerchief with the remains of his meal.
Alexander said quickly: “I’ll go to Rheged. By Viroconium, you said? Is there good lodging there?”
“I’ve never been there,” said the smith, “but I can tell you the way to take. For the most part it’s good enough, but for the next two or three days, I’m afraid, you may find rough going. There’s been heavy rain in the hills, a cloudburst only yesterday, you could see the storm-rain from here, and I’m told the bridge is down again a day’s ride northwards, where the road crosses the river. It happens with every flood. There was a courier through here early this morning, and by what he said you must needs ride a fair way west to find a crossing. See.” And reaching for a stick he got to his feet and drew a diagram in the mud at the river’s edge. “Here. And once across, you can turn back to the east along the river’s bank, and in half a day you’ll find your road again.”
“And for lodging? They told me in Blestium that there was a monastery beside the bridge. I was planning to sleep there. If I make for that now, then follow the river along the next day, the way you’ve marked there –”
The smith shook his head. “That colt won’t run, master. The monastery’s on the far side, so you’ll miss that night’s lodging anyway. Best turn away here, where I’ve put the mark. And here –” the stick prodded into the mud again – “you’ll likely find better lodging than at any monastery. The lady’s not at home now, being as how she’s fallen foul of her good brother, and he’s had her mewed up elsewhere these two years past, but those that serve her will take you in, sure enough, and give you good lodgement. And it’s a soft place to lie, they say, for all it’s called the Dark Tower.”
If there was something sly about the smith’s grin, Alexander did not notice it. “The Dark Tower? Lady? What lady?”
“The Lady Morgan, she that’s own sister to Arthur himself. Queen Morgan, I should have said; she was Urbgen’s queen in Rheged till he put her aside over some tangle of a lover and a try at stealing the King’s sword of state, the one they call Caliburn. It was over that she fell foul of her brother Arthur, so you’d be wiser not to talk of him, young sir, when you’re a guest at the Dark Tower.”
“Yes, of course. Of course I understand,” said Alexander, who did not understand at all, but who was finding this, his first brush with the great world, and the mention of famous names, exhilarating. It is possible that, even had the ruined bridge not forced him to turn aside for Queen Morgan’s castle, he would have ridden there rather than seek lodging in the tame purlieus of a monastery. “But you said that the lady herself – the queen – would not be there?” He was careful to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
“Well, she wasn’t, last time any news came by from there,” said the smith. “But there has been other news. There’s been coming and going, and a tide of urgent messages passing, between the south-west and the parts north-west of here, up into Northgalis and then further up still, to the edges of Rheged. And there’s been talk of meetings …” Here he paused, and then spat to one side, making a sign which Alexander recognised as one his Welsh groom made against magic … “Midnight meetings, and spells, and witches flying through the air when the moon’s down, and gathering in some spot to brew evil against their enemies.”
“And you believe all that?” asked Alexander.
“As to that,” said the smith gruffly, “living as I do, here by the crossway ford, I see a sight of strange things. Who am I to say what to believe and what not to believe? But if I was you I’d go carefully, young master, and if you do stay over at the castle, remember what they say about Queen Morgan! Faery they call her, and the word goes that she’s readier with her spells than ever was her sister Morgause, the witch from Orkney that tangled with Merlin and was hacked to pieces in her bed by her own son.” And he made the sign again.
“I’ll remember,” said Alexander, who had heard the story, and had no wish to hear it again. He thanked the man, gave him a coin, and rode on between the banks of forest, with his head full of castles and spells and royal names and the promise of a comfortable – or at the least an interesting – night’s lodging.
14
Towards late afternoon he reached the river and found that, as the smith had said, the water was swollen and fierce, pouring seawards below a steep bank that, even as he reached it, broke under the pressure of water and sent turf and stones swirling down in the flood. The only indication that there had ever been a bridge here was a stand of heavy wooden piles jutting from the far bank, where the road climbed up through the woods again.
The trees were thick, but through them he could just glimpse what looked like the corner of a building. The monastery, no doubt. He halted his horse and let it stand for a minute or two, while he calculated the depth and strength of the water. But even to his bold and inexperienced eye the river looked unfordable, so, with a shrug, he turned the horse’s head away and set it trotting upstream along the river bank. The path, steep and rough in places, was nevertheless well trodden, as if this had happened many times before. How many frustrated travellers, he wondered, halted at the grimly named Dark Tower to beg for a night’s lodging and shelter? Now that this prospect seemed fixed, the young man felt, behind the quiver of excited interest, some sort of nervousness. But when dusk began to draw in, and far across the brawling river he heard the first owl calling, he felt nothing but thankfulness as, through the trees some way to the right of the river bank, he saw a light.
His horse saw it, too, and perhaps smelled stable and supper. It pricked its ears and stepped out, suddenly eager, and soon horse and rider came out of the heavy shadow of the trees into a cleared stretch where the valley lay open, and there, on a bare little tableland of rocky grass, the castle stood.
It was small, a pair of towers joined by a curtain wall which curved back to enclose a courtyard where sheds and stables housed beasts and servants, and a big barnlike structure presumably held stores. Round three sides of the castl
e walls ran a stream, forming a natural moat. The spring that fed it was high in the valley’s side, and poured down, white in its rocky bed, to wash the front of the castle, where a narrow wooden bridge led across to a door sunk in a deep archway. The place was grim rather than grand, an old building of grey stone gone black with age and weather, designed for defence in that wild and lonely place. The valley lay high among the hills, with steep forest to either side rising to crags where ravens barked. In the open valley-foot the grass, even at that time of the year, grew thin between islands of bracken and thorn. A strange castle for a queen, thought Alexander, then remembered what the smith had said of Queen Morgan, that she had been cast off in disgrace by her husband, and had, moreover, grievously offended her brother the High King. So this castle, this well-named Dark Tower, was in effect a place of banishment, a prison? What sort of welcome would there be here for a benighted traveller? It did not occur to Alexander that a lonely and imprisoned queen might well open her gates joyfully to a young and personable prince.
In any case, there was nowhere else to go. Alexander set his horse splashing through the river which here, still rapid but spreading wide over grassland, was readily fordable, then swung down from the saddle and led the tired beast across the wooden footbridge.
The light he had seen came from a torch thrust into an iron bracket on what looked rather like a gibbet-pole. It glimmered on the iron studs of a heavy, fast-shut gate. Alexander drew his dagger, reversed it, and hammered with the hilt against the planks.
