Medraut

by David Pilling

  “Artorius,” he shouted, “I prayed to the gods for deliverance, and they sent you! Sure, Mórrígan and Mug Ruith must have a sense of humour after all.”

  Corc slid from his pony and knelt before the king, who took a gold ring from his finger and tossed it to him.

  “The first of many rewards,” said Feidlimid, “for the first and best of my warband, who has done me such good service.”

  Artorius smiled thinly. He still didn’t trust the King of Munster, whom he regarded as a shameless old rogue, full of bluster and deceit.

  “You may thank God the weather held,” he said, “and I was able to bring my fleet across the Hibernian Sea without difficulty. Also give thanks that Britannia was at peace when you asked me for help. I will not always be there to rescue you.”

  Feidlimid’s mouth widened in a gap-toothed grin. “The world without Artorius? Heaven forefend. You are a constant, great king. Like the rock upon which my fortress stands.”

  Artorius looked up at the rocky hillside towering above his head. Even this, one day, he thought, will be worn away to nothing.

  That night he and his men were guests of the King of Munster. A victory feast was held in the longhouse on the Rock, where Artorius and Feildlimid sat together at the high table and drank each other’s health in mead. The High King’s chief Companions were also feasted in the hall. They sat on the long benches together with the Scotti king’s warriors, eating and singing while the mead-cup went round and Feidlimid’s bard sang of their great victory.

  Meanwhile, in the rainy darkness outside, the defeated warbands of the Scotti rebels were hunted through the night. Feidlimid sent his riders after them, as well as bands of spearmen with dogs, wolf-like hunting hounds that could track a man through the deepest pits of Hell. Artorius’ cavalry assisted in the hunt. Come the morning, these men returned, weary but happy, bearing the severed heads of scores of enemy warriors. These were laid in a reeking pile before the gates of the longhouse, where Feidlimid could admire them.

  “Ah, now,” he cried, snatching up one of the heads, “Cathair, King of Laigin! A fine-looking man, was he not? His fairness hid a rotten soul. Cankered, black-hearted murderer, slayer of good men, who levied fire and sword on Munster.”

  Feidlimid lifted the dead man’s face close to his own and kissed his. Then he growled, like one of his hounds, and chewed off the nose and lips.

  “There,” he said, spitting out the morsels of flesh, “he isn’t so fair anymore.”

  Artorius took little notice of his host’s savagery. He was keen to be done with Hibernia and return home as soon as possible. After the ravages of the plague, there was much to be done in Britannia. His kingdom would take many years to heal. Whole swathes of the country were depopulated, which meant the crops would fail and the land degenerate into waste. Artorius wanted to spend the last months of his reign ensuring his people would not starve.

  Feidlimid insisted on entertaining the High King for three more days. As the most powerful king in Hibernia, even more so now his enemies were destroyed, Artorius dared not offend him. For the sake of peace, he endured three more drunken feasts in the longhouse, laughed at Feidlimid’s crude jests, smiled and applauded the flattery of his bards. Artorius was not fooled by their verses, nor the Scotti king’s mead-fuelled declarations of friendship. Neither was Bedwyr.

  “As soon as we’re gone, Feidlimid will seek to take over the whole island,” Artorius’ old friend said to him before the feast on the third night. “We have broken his enemies for him. Cleared his path.”

  “I know,” replied Artorius, “and if he succeeds, Feidlimid might declare himself High King of Hibernia and cut all ties with Britannia. Refuse to pay any more tribute. Send his ships to ravage our coasts. Just like the old days.”

  Artorius gave a weary sigh. “Or perhaps he will fall off his horse and break his neck, or get his throat slit in some skirmish. I cannot settle every problem, Bedwyr. Deal with every crisis, win every battle. These are problems for my successor. We grow old, my friend. Every day the weight gets a little more unbearable. Soon I will set it aside. Forever.”

  The two men were alone together in the guest-lodge beside the hall. Artorius used this rare moment of privacy to inform Bedwyr of his retirement.

  “You mean to abdicate?” Bedwyr looked frightened. It was an unsettling sight. Never, in all their long friendship, had Artorius known the man to show any fear.

  “Yes. It is time I went. Llacheu deserves his chance to rule. He has been raised and trained for nothing else. If I cling onto power much longer, he may start to resent me. Even the best of men have their limits.”

  Bedwyr puffed out his fallen cheeks. “Well,” he said slowly, “I can see the sense of it. What will you do with the rest of your days? Grow cabbages?”

  “Ha! Perhaps. Gwenhwyfar suggested as much. Some old Emperor did the same. The peace of a monastery does have its attractions. I have much to atone for. God has been kind to me, and will expect something in return.”

  “Yes,” said Bedwyr, looking thoughtful. “I have sometimes thought of it myself. The cloister, I mean. Plenty of fighting men have ended their days in a house of God, praying for the souls of their comrades. We have lost so many old friends, Artorius. They all had tarnished souls. Someone needs to pray for their deliverance from Purgatory. Cei, for instance.”

  Artorius roared with laughter. “If Cei is in Purgatory, then Heaven help the angels! We should pray for their deliverance from him!”

  Bedwyr frowned. Humour didn’t come easily to him, and he disapproved of blasphemy. Not for the first time, Artorius longed for the days of their youth, when he, Bedwyr and Cei had called themselves the Three Chief Warriors of the Island of the Mighty. He longed for Cei, whose acid wit had acted as a foil to Bedwyr’s dourness.

  We were arrogant, he thought wistfully, as young men will be. But happy. A life of striving and glorious endeavour lay ahead of us. Our task was to rescue Britannia from the pagans. To earn a place in history and legend. And we did it, too. What comes next?

  He had his answer soon enough. That evening, when the feast was at its height, a messenger came to the Rock. Artorius, seated as usual beside Feidlimid at high table, saw a spearman enter the longhouse through a side door way and make his way to the dais. He paused to wring out his sopping wet cloak before approaching the royal dais. Few of the men packed onto the mead-benches took any notice of him. Their shouting and laughter filled the room, mingled with harp music and the yelping of wolfhounds.

  The spearman hurried up the steps of the dais and whispered urgently into Feidlimid’s ear. Artorius failed to overhear the message in the din, though noticed his host’s irritable expression change to one of fear and disbelief. He gaped at the messenger, who shrugged helplessly.

  “Go!” Feidlimid snapped. “Fetch him in, quickly!”

  Artorius exchanged glances with Bedwyr, who slightly raised the middle three fingers of his right hand. This was a secret signal among the Companions. If Artorius responded in kind, Bedwyr would draw his sword. This in turn was the signal for their men to fly to arms. Artorius shook his head slightly. This was not the time or place for a massacre. Not yet. If Feidlimid had any treachery planned, he would soon regret it.

  The clamour in the hall died down as the double doors swung open, admitting a squall of wind and rain. It was a filthy night, and men cursed at the sudden chill that swept through the room. Three men stood in the entrance. Two were spearmen. The fringes of their sodden cloaks dripped onto the earthen floor. The third was a squat, bulky figure. In his right hand, he carried a wicker basket.

  “Come!” shouted Feidlimid. “Come in, damn you, before we all freeze to death. And close those doors!”

  The trio stepped inside. Artorius thought he recognised the newcomer, and knew it when the latter approached the hearth between the mead-benches. The glow of the firelight illuminated his unlovely features. He wore the red cloak of a Companion, now tattered and rent, and a battered coat o
f ringmail over his tunic. He was bald, and his plain features were disfigured by a broken nose and an ugly pink scar from temple to jaw.

  “Maelwys,” exclaimed Artorius, “why are you here? I left you as captain of the garrison in Caerleon. What happened?”

  His voice faded away. Maelwys slumped heavily to one knee and laid the basket on the ground before him. The assembled warriors, Scotti and Britons, stared at him in mute confusion. Even the music of the harps died away. Silence reigned in the hall, disturbed only by the snap and crackle of the fire, the muffled drumming of rain on thatch, and the ghostly sigh of the wind.

  “Lord king,” said Maelwys, lisping slightly; his jaw had never properly recovered from a fracture sustained in an ancient skirmish.

  “Well?” demanded Artorius when the other man failed to speak. Fear, and something like panic, coursed through him when he saw Maelwys’ heavy shoulders start to tremble. The grizzled old warrior, cruel as a starving wolf and veteran of any number of slaughters, was actually weeping.

  “Lord king,” Maelwys repeated in a choked voice. “I am the last. There...there is no longer a garrison at Caerleon. My men are all dead. Killed in battle, or their living bodies impaled on stakes. Dead, all dead...”

  He mastered himself. “Ten days gone, Caerleon fell to the Saxons. The city is now in Cerdic’s hands. Our western defences are overrun. Mons Ambrius and the Great Dyke have fallen.”

  A gasp of dismay rippled around the benches. Curses and muttered oaths. Artorius’ head swam. He felt his legs buckle, and gripped the edge of the table for support.

  “The Queen...” he managed. Despite all the mead he had gulped down, his throat was suddenly dry as parchment.

  Maelwys slowly opened the lid of the basket and reached inside. Artorius braced himself for the worst.

  The old warrior lifted out a golden bracelet. Twined around it was a wreath of silvery yellow hairs. At the sight of them an invisible dagger passed through Artorius’ heart. He sagged back into his chair. His heart pounded, and a strange mist floated before his eyes.

  “This arm-ring is a gift from Cerdic,” Maelwys said heavily. “He let me live, so I might carry it to you, along with a message. The hairs were taken from Gwenhwyfar’s head.”

  Artorius’ mouth worked, but no words came forth.

  “What message?” Bedwyr demanded sternly. He crossed the dais to stand protectively behind his friend.

  Maelwys paused to dash the tears from his face.

  “Just this, my king,” he said, his voice stronger now, more his true self. “Gwenhwyfar is dead. Llacheu is dead. Cadwy is exiled. Medraut has betrayed us and joined the Saxons. So, too, have the kings of Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed and Rhos. Caerleon is now in enemy hands. Cerdic has declared Medraut the new High King and crowned him on your seat in the Round Hall.

  “Cerdic bids you stay away from Britannia. Live out your days in exile, never set foot on British soil again. Or come and fight for what you have lost. He and his allies will be ready. Such is my message.”

  Exhausted, Maelwys rested his head on his forearm. All eyes in the hall turned to Artorius.

  The High King sat immobile, unable to move or speak. Cerdic’s words were like hammer-blows, pounding his soul to dust. The light and people of the hall faded into nothing. Stars wheeled before him, turned and collided and shattered. Across the years, the long, painful decades of his life, surfaced the lines of an elegy.

  “I saw an array that came from the west,

  Who brought themselves as a sacrifice to a feast,

  I saw a second array who came down upon their settlement,

  Who had been roused by the promise of gold,

  I saw mighty men who came at dawn,

  And it was my lord’s head that the ravens gnawed.

  Men came here with a war-cry.

  Speedy steeds and black armour and shields,

  Spear-shafts held high and spear-points sharp-edged,

  And glittering coats of mail and swords,

  Uthyr led the way, he burst their ranks,

  He glutted the walls of the fort,

  Fed the ravens on their blood,

  It is a sad wonder to me,

  How he met his death by their blades.”

  These verses were composed by a Selgovae bard as he and the remnants of his tribe were led away into slavery. The poem was an elegy for their menfolk, slaughtered in a raid by a Votadini warband, and the passing of their world. Artorius’ blood-father, Uthyr Penddraig, was one of the warriors slain by the Votadini. He could barely remember the man. He remembered the elegy though, and the soft lilting voice of the bard. The bite of the leather bonds on his own wrists, as he was herded along with the rest of the survivors. The lash of Votadini whips on his back. The voice of Ambrosius, his stepfather, the last of the true Roman governors of Britannia. Artorius saw the man in his prime, his hawkish profile, tall and thin and commanding, a throwback to the imperious Caesars of old.

  He drew strength from the memory. In his lifetime Ambrosius had suffered every kind of anguish, endured defeat after defeat. Yet nothing could break him. He was a rock, against which the enemies of Britannia foundered.

  “We are not born to live as mortal men,” he once told Artorius, “but to give future generations hope. A memory of a time when our people were victorious, and lived as free citizens in their own land.”

  Artorius’ fingers curled instinctively round the hilt of Caledfwlch. The reassuring weight of the sword, forever by his side, was another reminder of his duty. Duty was all. Sorrow, loss, death, treachery; these were all secondary concerns. Only lesser men could afford the indulgence of grief.

  “Lord king.” Bedwyr’s voice, summoning him back to the present. His pulse slackened. The stars faded. Artorius lifted his head. Hundreds of men stared back at him, warriors all, packed onto the mead-benches of a raftered feasting hall. He recognised many of their faces. These men would follow him anywhere, to the very gates of Hell. Come what may, Artorius refused to fail them.

  “We sail at once,” he declared, “to avenge our dead, and to bury them.”

  15.

  Medraut went north at the head of his army. With him rode the four traitor kings and their warbands. They were his men now. All of them.

  High King.

  He savoured the thought. Granted, it was an empty title, since he relied entirely on the favour and support of Cerdic. As if to ram home the point, Cerdic had placed the crown on Medraut’s head with his own hands. His giant figure loomed behind the throne while Maelgwn and the others knelt and swore the oath of allegiance. Cerdic’s influence was only temporary, Medraut told himself. One day, when he was more secure in his power and support, he would throw off the Saxon yoke. He had youth on his side, years to plan his redemption. Though still vigorous, an immensely strong bear of a man, Cerdic was well into his fifties. He couldn’t last forever. His sons were not yet grown to manhood, and Medraut rated them pale shadows of their father. His destiny was still in his own hands. He could overthrow the prophecy of Myrddin, destroy the Dragon and the Wolf, rule Britannia on his own terms with no inconvenient rivals. Maelgwn, the next most powerful ruler on the island, was weak and easily cowed. He would be closely watched. They all would. Medraut meant to copy the example of the Eastern Emperors he had served under, and rule with an iron fist. The people of Britannia would learn to live in terror of his name. It was the quickest and best way of earning respect.

  First, he had to kill his father. He had begged this favour from Cerdic. Let him meet Artorius in person, at the head of a British army, and destroy him in open battle.

  “No Saxons,” said Medraut. “I must defeat him, alone, with British troops. The bards must have no reason to say I relied on foreign allies. This must be my achievement.”

  “It will be better, in the long run The Britons must not think they have been conquered. I want them to see me as a liberator. The man who saved them from a tyrant who had ruled too long. That way they will be content. The who
le of Britannia will fall under your sway, dread lord. And not a drop of Saxon blood shed to achieve it.”

  Cerdic rubbed his bristly chin. He looked doubtful, but Medraut had learned how to handle his moods. The Bretwalda was swift to crush any defiance, tolerated no arguments. His will was absolute, his decisions final. Yet there were ways of yielding, of appearing to give ground before him, and thus influence those decisions.

  “Go, then,” the Saxon warlord said at last, “take your British spears and tear down your father. Bring me his head, so I might show it to the barrow-mounds where my kinsmen lie. Their shades can know peace at last, and you shall have my eternal friendship.”

  Medraut risked one of his boyish smiles. “I thought I had earned that friendship already, dread king.”

  Cerdic said nothing, and his own smile chilled Medraut’s blood. He was allowed to live, for now, but his lifespan was measured in weeks. Once Artorius was defeated, and the flower of his army broken, the Wolf would tear out his throat. If I let him.

  Medraut hoped to use this campaign as a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the British kings, and to prove he could lead them to victory against anyone. Even the Bretwalda.

  He had the numbers. Three hundred cavalry and fifteen hundred spears, almost twice as many as his father had taken to Hibernia. Medraut sent men to watch the western coasts for any sign of his father’s fleet, with instructions to light the beacons as soon as his ships were spotted. No word had filtered back across the sea of Artorius’ progress against the Scotti rebels. For all Medraut knew, the old man might be dead already. He prayed not.

  Artorius must die by my hand. None other. Our fates are entwined.

  At first Medraut moved west from Caerleon, thinking Artorius would attempt a landing on the coast of Dyfed. Then riders came from the north-west. Artorius had sailed from Hibernia, but not for Dyfed. Instead his ships flew north under full sail, propelled by favourable winds. Towards Gwynedd. Medraut clapped his hands together and thought for a moment.