Medraut

by David Pilling

  When the song was ended, Cerdic grinned at Medraut and recited part of it again, this time in the British tongue: “

  Bows were busy; shields took spear-point,

  Bitter the battle-rush!

  Warriors fell,

  On either hand, young men lay.

  Slain were they, who chose the slaughter-bed,

  Sons and brothers, with swords and spears,

  Badly hewn,

  There I stood ready,

  Surrounded by warriors,

  Baited them with shields,

  Built the battle-hedge,

  Held the line,

  Fast against foes,

  Then was the fight near,

  Glory in battle!”

  Even as he sang, Cerdic’s warriors brought forth a great ram, mounted on wheels and protected by a covering of tough leather hides. Forty men were needed to push the monstrous device.

  The Saxons chanted as they wheeled it towards the western gate, already battered from the pounding of catapults. A few stones and arrows rattled harmlessly off the covering. Still the ram ground remorselessly on, crushing the bodies of slain warriors under its wheels. It reached the gate. Drums thundered, and the Saxon priests howled and capered. Medraut winced as the body of the ram, hewed from a single tree trunk and capped with an iron head tapered to a point, swung and hammered against the gates. They shivered under the stroke, but did not break.

  “Again!” howled Cerdic, though the ram-bearers were too far away to hear. “Smash them down! Woden, hurl your spear!”

  Five times the ram swung. The gates buckled inward. Fighting continued to rage on the wall. Cerdic’s warriors had almost cleared the walkway of defenders, though the dragon banner still flew defiantly from the battlements. Time and again the Britons rallied. One tall warrior, purple cloak swirling about him, stood on the parapet above the gateway and glutted his sword in Saxon blood. Cerdic beckoned to Medraut.

  “Who is that?” he demanded. “Seven of my good huscarls he has slain.”

  “Llacheu,” replied Medraut, with a touch of pride, “my eldest brother and regent of Britannia.”

  The Bretwalda nodded, and fingered one of the heavy golden bracelets on his upper arms.

  “I thought so. Brave man. Brave fool. The warrior who slays him shall have gold rings and a torc from my arm.”

  Llacheu’s heroics were not enough. One man alone could not stem the tide. He disappeared from view, engulfed in bodies, even as the ram crashed home for a sixth and final time. The tormented gates could resist no longer. With a creak of groaning and splitting timber, they swung inwards and collapsed off their hinges.

  A great yell of delight arose from the Saxons around Medraut. Through the swirling dust and chaos of battle he saw mailed warriors pouring through the breach. Trumpets sounded inside Caerleon. Medraut pictured the hellish scene, the streets choked with wounded and dying, cobbles slippery with blood, everywhere the stench of slaughter. Haggard warriors, exhausted from hours of battle, scarcely able to lift their sword-arms. The bravest would form a thin line of shields against the enemy storming through the gates. One last effort, before darkness closed over them all.

  Medraut wondered if his brothers were dead yet. He hoped so.

  Let them die in battle, he thought. I never had any love for Llacheu and Cadwy. Nor would I see them suffer. A swift death with honour, rather than the torments Cerdic would inflict on them.

  There was a hiss of oiled steel on leather. Cerdic had drawn his sword, a fine-forged weapon of wrought steel, almost as fine as Caledfwlch. The smith who laboured on it must have been an exceptional craftsman. A rippling wave pattern ran down the length of the blade, and the hilt was stamped and decorated with garnets, golden plates and a ring of wolves swallowing each other’s tails, their tiny eyes picked out in coloured glass.

  “Now,” declared the hulking Saxon, “I shall go forward and claim my prize. You too, little king. And the ape.”

  The Bretwalda advanced on the shattered gates. Priests bore the wolf standard before him, and his hall-troop, the royal huscarls, marched at his side. Medraut and Amhar were chivvied along by their guards. In an effort to retain some kind of dignity, Medraut strode well ahead of his escort, sword in hand.

  He had dreamed of entering Caerleon as a conqueror on horseback. In the dream, the people of the city knelt before him, and his brother Cadwy stepped forward to offer him the crown on a purple cushion. Llacheu then presented him with their father’s head on a spear. Medraut had long picture himself staring into Artorius’ dead eyes. Of spitting in his face.

  Instead he came to Caerleon as a slave, a mere puppet of the Saxons. Medraut’s cudgelled his wits for some way out of his predicament. For now, he must wait, smile at Cerdic’s coarse jests, do his bidding when required.

  Survive.

  They entered the city to find a scene of utter carnage. The broken gates hung off their hinges; corpses of Saxon and British warriors lay heaped together near the entrance to the street. The air was full of blood and dust, tinged with urine, vomit and excrement; many had fouled themselves in sheer terror. Only the occasional scream or dying gurgle, where a wounded Briton was despatched, broke the eerie silence that now reigned over the western wall.

  The battle had carried into the heart of the city. Medraut could see fighting rage at the far end of the street, where the Britons had rallied behind a breastwork of shields and heaped furniture. Cerdic’s mailed warriors tried to tear down the barrier, while the defenders hurled missiles down on their heads. To the west, beyond the tiled roofs of shops and houses, rose the whitewashed towers of the High King’s palace.

  A huscarl, his face a mask of blood, limped down the stair and presented Cerdic with a stained and folded rag of canvas. He muttered something in his own tongue, though Medraut required no translation. The rag was the dragon banner, torn from the standard above the gates.

  Cerdic grasped the banner in his fist. “This flew over the bodies of my kin at Mount Badon,” he said to Medraut. “Six thousand Saxons died that day. Slaughtered by your father and his troops. It took my people twenty years to recover their strength. I guided them. Shielded them. Forged a new destiny. The wheel turns, Medraut son of Artorius. It turns for us all.”

  He raised the bloodied rag high, opened his fingers and let it flutter to the ground. The red dragon of Britannia lay sprawled on the cobbles. Cerdic placed his foot on the fallen creature’s head.

  “Caerleon is mine,” he declared.

  * * *

  Fighting went on long into the night. The Britons sold themselves dear and made Cerdic’s men pay in blood for every step of ground yielded. Yet the Saxon advance was remorseless. Driven on by fury and hatred, bolstered by weight of numbers, Cerdic’s folk tore down every barricade and drove the Britons back, street by street, alley by alley, until they reached the central plaza.

  Medraut witnessed the last stand of the defenders of Caerleon. Sixty men or so, soldiers and civilians, packed into a spear-ring before the palace gates. The Saxons closed upon them, withdrew, and flooded back again, like the remorseless tide battering against the shore. The ring of spears contracted. Less than thirty Britons remained on their feet, bloodied and stubborn, silent in their hopeless defiance.

  Again the Saxons charged, clambering over the rampart of bodies between them and the foe. Axes swung, spears stabbed, shields splintered and burst to pieces. For a moment all was chaos, banners wavered and fell, a broken helm sailed lazily into the air. When the Saxons withdrew again, they left not a trace of British resistance, only a great mound of corpses, hewn and hacked, fallen warriors drowning in their own blood.

  “Food for ravens,” grunted Cerdic, “and the wolf in the wood.”

  He rubbed his hands. “Storm the palace. Go. Break down the gates and scour it clean. Slay the weak, keep the strongest for slaves. If she is still alive, I want Queen Gwenhwyfar brought before me.”

  His orders were obeyed. The great ram was fetched up and was soon
pounding at the iron-bound gates of the palace. Meanwhile the victorious Saxons hunted through the streets of Caerleon, looking for survivors to kill or enslave. The city was given over to the sack, churches and shops and houses stripped clean of anything of value. Wine-cellars and alehouses were broken into. Drunken warriors staggered through the city, laughing and bellowing their rough songs. Others dug out great piles of treasure, candlesticks and silverware, fell to quarrelling over the spoil with their comrades. Seaxes were drawn, harsh words exchanged, and men fought knife to knife over the riches of Caerleon.

  After the gates were stoved in, Cerdic sent his own huscarls to search and plunder the palace. Screams rose into the night sky when they discovered the defenceless folk hiding inside. Everyone, down to the meanest beggar, was put to the sword. The halls, pillars and galleries of the High King’s residence were spattered with British blood. Smoke started to curl from the upper windows, fires crackled inside, tongues of orange flame licked hungrily at the walls.

  Helpless, Medraut could only despair as he watched the rape of Caerleon. This was supposed to be his city. His palace. From here he had dreamed of ruling in glory as High King after his hated father was deposed.

  “Dread king,” he begged, “call off your troops before they raze Caerleon to the ground. How can I govern the Britons on your behalf if you destroy the capital?”

  The Bretwalda, his ruddy face enflamed with mead and the joy of victory, gave a shrug.

  “The bare walls will stand,” he said carelessly. “Fire cannot raze stone. My men deserve their reward. I dare not restrain them. Only a foolish commander stands between his warriors and the fruits of victory. Women, treasure, drink, blood. When they are sated, then I shall call them off. Not before.”

  Medraut gave up. There was a dangerous light in Cerdic’s green eyes, and his fingers twitched as they grasped his naked sword. As yet the Bretwalda had not killed a single Briton. His blade was clean. Medraut had no wish to be the first to dirty it.

  A band of thegns loped into the plaza, led by one of the Saxon priests.

  “Lord king,” cried the latter, “we have found the Queen!”

  Cerdic bared his teeth.

  “Where?” he demanded.

  “She has barricaded herself in the Round Hall, lord, outside the city. The regent is there also, and a few others. Our men have the hall surrounded. I speak the British tongue, and Gwenhwyfar offers a truce. She wants to talk.”

  His tawny eyes glanced at Medraut. “She also wishes to speak with Prince Medraut, and the British kings who joined our host.”

  For once, Cerdic looked surprised. “Talk? I don’t need to talk to her. The city is mine. She has nothing to offer me. Except her body, and I have no wish to play with Artorius’ leavings.

  “Go to her,” he commanded Medraut. “Take your fellow traitors and listen to what the bitch has to say. Tell Gwenhwyfar I may consent to spare her life, if she crawls here through the streets on all fours and kisses my foot. She will spend the rest of her days as a slave of slaves, cleaning out dung-pits. If she refuses, take her head and bring it to me on a spear.

  “Take the ape as well,” he added. “Let him gnaw on a few bones.”

  Medraut made his way through the firelit hell of the streets. The sub-kings of Britannia trailed after him. Cowed by the slaughter and destruction all around them, they shrunk into themselves, huddled together like frightened sheep.

  Little men, Medraut thought contemptuously, frightened of the consequences of their acts. Cowards! Perhaps I do have some leverage over them.

  Only Amhar kept pace with Medraut. The long chain of the big mute’s slave collar dragged behind him, slithering along the cobbles like an iron serpent. His eyes shone in the glow of the fires, white-knuckled hands clenched around the haft of his spear. Amhar seemed to draw strength from Medraut, or perhaps his feral soul was excited by the sight and stench of violent death.

  The Round Hall lay just outside Caerleon. It was a self-contained fortress, quite separate from the city, defended by a circular ditch and stone wall. Here the dragon banner still flew from the roof of the old Roman amphitheatre, converted by Artorius into a stronghold and meeting place for his councils. It was also the home of the Round Table. Now the hall was besieged by hundreds of Saxons. Medraut arrived to find they had surrounded the outer perimeter, so nothing could get in or out. There were no sentries on the wall, but lights could be seen flickering inside the arched windows of the hall itself.

  The thegn with the tawny eyes barked at the close ranks of spearmen, who parted to let him and the Britons through. Medraut was aware of the scornful glances of the Saxons. He heard their muffled laughter, the coarse jests passed between them. It wasn’t necessary to understand the Saxon tongue to appreciate what was said.

  He stalked towards the gate, head held high, ignoring the laughter and insults. One day – if he lived long enough – he would teach the Saxons to respect him. Fear him.

  Just as they feared my father. I will make them howl for mercy, and make a belt of Cerdic’s skin.

  “Christ protect us,” Maelgwn of Gwynedd whispered behind him, “one false word or move out of place, and these pigs will cut us to pieces.”

  “Then don’t give them cause,” Medraut snarled through gritted teeth.

  The gate was open. Medraut stepped through and advanced down the cobbled avenue leading to the main entrance of the Round Hall. There were no guards. The carefully tended lawns outside the hall were empty. Somewhere a fountain tinkled. The gardens of the Round Hall had always been a haven of peace. They remained so even now, with the enemy at the gates.

  Steeling himself against hidden blades, Medraut pushed open the heavy black door and entered the wide corridor beyond. Centuries ago, at the height of Roman power in Britannia, the people of Caerleon had filed down this passage to watch gladiators and wild animals tear each other apart in the arena. Medraut could almost sense the presence of all those vanished generations, the weight of ancient history pressing down on his shoulders.

  It was time to make history. He stepped into the hall proper. The Round Table lay before him, a hollow circle of brightly polished wood, shining in the light of torches mounted high on the walls. In years passed by, this hall had thronged with people, servants passing around horns of mead, hot peppered chops on skewers, platefuls of meat and bread and stew for all. On certain special days in the year, every seat at the Table was filled, and the great men of Britannia sat together, filled the chamber with talk and song and laughter. Bards had sat below the dais and picked out rousing melodies, sung of the deeds of dead and living British heroes. Beli Mawr and Macsen Wledig, Pwyll of the Demetae, Gwyn son of Nudd, Boudicca of the Iceni, Vortigern and Ambrosius. And, of course, the deeds of Artorius and his Companions.

  The seats were empty, the hall was silent. Three men stood in the chamber before the lowest step of the royal dais. Llacheu, Cadwy and Llyr, captain of the Queen’s personal guard. All three were badly wounded and pale from loss of blood, even Cadwy. Despite their injuries, they held themselves upright.

  Above them, Gwenhwyfar sat on her husband’s royal chair. She also held herself straight as a spear, a vision of cold imperial dignity. More like a statue than a living woman, she scarcely seemed to breathe, hands laid flat on the arms of the chair, eyes fixed straight ahead. Medraut noted with amusement the helmet and dagger laid beside her chair, the bloodstained leather tunic she wore over her gown.

  “Warrior queen,” he remarked in a mocking tone.

  Behind him the British kings filed into the chamber. Medraut was gratified to see Llacheu and Cadwy turn pale at the sight of them. Gwenhwyfar remained still, though her eyes widened a little.

  “Traitors,” hissed Llacheu. “I called for your aid. Instead you betrayed us. Betrayed your country. Your people.”

  “I have my own country to think of, Llacheu,” snarled Maelgwn. “Your father beggared Gwynedd. Humiliated me, slaughtered my best warriors, levied tribute. He bled my kingd
om white, all in the name of his so-called peace. Now I bleed him in return.”

  Vortipor of Dyfed, a short, angry-looking man with drooping black moustaches, stepped forward.

  “And I,” he growled, “for twenty years Artorius has lorded it over the kings of Britannia. Demands we obey his laws, quit our feuds, attend his councils, send him tribute and soldiers when he wants them. Yet who is Artorius? By what right does he hold the crown? We are ruled by a former slave, born into a tribe of pirates and raiders from beyond the Wall, raised beyond his proper station in life!”

  “He has no right at all,” cried Aurelius Caninus, “and nor do you, Prince Llacheu! Your time is done. We shall have a proper king to rule over us – aye, or perhaps no High King at all!”

  Medraut rounded on him.

  “Watch your words,” he spat. “Cerdic has promised to put me on the throne. Do you dare defy him? Any of you?”

  Aurelius choked back his retort. None of the kings would meet Medraut’s eye. He despised them for cowards, yet Aurelius’ words struck him with fear. As the son of Artorius and his dead concubine, Ganhumara, Medraut had no more royal blood in him than the next commoner.

  For the first time, he realised the true weakness of his position. He relied entirely on Cerdic, who could drop him whenever he chose. Llacheu laughed, a desperate, mirthless sound.

  “I see the thieves have already fallen to arguing. Were you lured by Cerdic’s promises of wealth and glory? Now he has taken the riches of Caerleon for himself. Nothing will be left for you – any of you – save bare walls and the laughter of the Saxons!”

  Medraut turned, fuming, and advanced on Llacheu with murder in his heart. The other man waited, arms folded across his chest. He didn’t even draw his sword.

  Gwenhwyfar rose from her seat.

  “Enough!” she cried. “I sent word to Cerdic that I wished to discuss terms, not listen to men swap insults!”

  Her voice echoed like a whip-crack in the shadowy vastness of the hall. Medraut paused to look up at her elegant figure poised on the dais.