Hawk of May (27 page)

“Never.”

“I mentioned your name to him last night, praising you, and he stopped me. ‘I cannot,' he told me. ‘The man is a sorcerer and the son of a sorceress. He has given me a victory, but by sorcery, madness, and darkness. I cannot take him into my Family and trust him.' He was so tired, so unhappy, and so certain. Agravain, he
will apologize to you later.”

I stood looking at the other two and thinking hard. In a way, the High King was right. I had done nothing but kill Saxons, and the madness and the fire in the sword could easily appear sorcerous; indeed, appeared that rather than anything else. No one fights with the sword alone…Bedwyr had said that. In the end, the reasons are as important, and Arthur had no evidence of my reasons for fighting for him. But what could I do to show him? I thought of all I had seen of the Family, of Arthur. It was not an ordinary warband, and not only because the warriors were so skilled. There was a bond of pride among them, a common love, and a common, half-understood vision. How could I think to enter into a thing like that through strength of arms? I had been a fool to think that I could solve everything with the sword's edge.

I remembered the dream I had had in Camlann, and again saw Arthur in the Queen's shadow. Everywhere I turned, she always appeared, as though all shadows were her shadow. She still held a part of me, locked in bonds forged with blood, past commitment, and present desire. I would not be free until I met her again, face to face, and either severed the bond or became snared in it for ever. How could I say to Arthur, “I am free of the Darkness”? Darkness had formed me. I had defeated it in the past, but by no strength of my own. Arthur had reason to feel as he did, and I had no way to change his mind.

I ached with the knowledge that I had lost again, now, perhaps for ever. Perhaps I should leave. As Arthur had said, I could easily find a place with any king in Britain. If I went to Urien of Rheged…

No. Here I had been led, here I had set my hopes. To leave would be to accept defeat and surrender. I struggled with the pain for a moment, then ignored it.

“What will you do?” asked Bedwyr, gently.

“I will go on,” I told the two, looking back to them.

I might have hung about and brooded futilely for the rest of that day, but I had to visit the sick-tents. I still wanted to have my cut treated.

As I approached the tents, I heard a strange sound, a kind of low drone like a hive of bees. I stopped and looked questioningly at Agravain, who was still with me. Bedwyr had left with Cei.

“The wounded,” my brother answered casually. “They have settled down somewhat now. God, but the physicians must be tired!”

“What? Do you mean that they are still working, from last night?”

“Oh, they've done the worst. They work in shifts. Now, I think, they are checking the walking wounded and getting down to work on some of the men they were unsure of last night. You know, men who come in with a bad arm and they can't decide whether or not to amputate, so they leave them a while; or men who were uncertain to live, even if they were treated, who the doctors left in favor of someone their skill wouldn't be wasted on.” Agravain hesitated. “To tell the truth, I've no love for such places, especially at this stage of the work. Do you mind if…?”

“No. I will join you later.”

I didn't, though.

There was not enough room for all the wounded inside the tents, and those who had already been treated had been brought outside. These lay on the grass, like fish on a beach after a storm. Their faces were chalk-grey, eyes glazed in resignation or abnormally bright. Some wore bandages, some did not. No one who has hunted, let alone fought, is shocked at blood, but it is different when it is a man who lies before you with his stomach open and entrails tied in, rather than a deer, and when you see him in the cool light of rationality. The badly injured lay still, moaning or mumbling every now and then—an awful sound. It was this moaning and mumbling joined together that caused the droning I had heard. Some men lay still, asleep or dead; others, less badly injured, sat apart from the others, talking in undertones. The place smelled, too, of dirt, sweat, vomit, excrement, and the beginnings of rot, a smell of pain. I picked my way through the lines of men slowly, now uncertain why I had come. One of the men saw me as I passed, and waved his hand heavily. I recognized him as one of Cei's band of thirty, and went over to him.

“Water,” he muttered. “Do you have water?”

“I…I will try and get you some.” Several of the men around him also began to ask for water. I nodded. I wanted to run from that place. When I remembered how lightly I had claimed some of their water that morning, I felt sick.

I went into the tent and stood for a while, staring. One of the doctors, finishing off an amputation, noticed me. “Well, what do you want?” he demanded harshly.

“I…have just a scratch. I will see to it myself.”

“Thank you. Well, now that you have decided that, what are you waiting for?”

“There are some men outside who need water.”

“There are lots of men outside who need water, but there are more in here who need surgery, and not enough to help with it; and the servants need sleep.”

“Would you like me to help?”

He stared at me, taking in the rich clothes and the gold-hilted sword. Then he smiled slowly. “As a matter of fact, warrior, I would—if you've any notion of how to use a knife to heal instead of to harm.”

“I do not know, but tell me what to do, and what I can do, I will learn.”

Learn I did, until about midnight that night. Few warriors know of the battle which takes place in the sick-tents when their fighting is done, except when their lives become a part of it. It is a hard struggle, as fierce and ruthless as anything one encounters in the field, and requires as much, or more, training than do the arts of war. It is not, as some warriors think, a simple matter any cattle butcher could perform. The surgeon who holds the knife needs knowledge, and even his helpers, who merely hold down the patient, must know, or be able to understand, how to hold and how to stop the bleeding and where to tie the cords. Morgawse had taught me of various herbs, and one of her books had dealt with the properties of plants, but I had not paid much attention to advice for medicine. I had learned to use sword and knife, but was almost unaware that they could be used to save the life of the man they are used on. Even learning it while holding down a screaming patient for his doctor, it made good knowledge.

Just before midnight I pushed my hair out of my eyes and looked around to find that there was no more to do. Servants and relations of the wounded had been busy taking away whomever they could and making the rest comfortable, and that work too was nearly finished.

“You had better go and rest now,” said Gruffydd, the surgeon I had first spoken with. “Unless—you did have some-thing you originally came here for?”

“Nothing—well, a scratch. I only wished to guard it against the rot.”

“A wise thought. Let me see it.”

He looked at the cut and shook his head. “Indeed. What made you think that this was just a scratch? It goes down past the bone, here and here.”

“Does it?” I was surprised. “It didn't look that deep, and scarcely hurt at all.”

“Well, it doesn't seem to have bled much…Cadwallon, some salve and a bandage.” He paused, glanced up at me. “You are not a berserker, are you?”

“A what?”

“A berserker. It is a Saxon word; it means one who goes mad in battle. Their strength is double to triple what it is normally, so they are dangerous men.”

“I did go mad in the battle. How could you tell?”

He grinned. “Well, we'd heard, even in here, that you charged a Saxon shield-wall”—we had exchanged names at a snatched meal—“and that is mad enough. But besides that, the wound hasn't bled as much as it should have. I've seen it before, but only with men who go mad in battle.” He began to clean the wound. It stung. “We've heard all sorts of rumors about you—otherworlds and magic, wild as you please. But such nonsense is frequently attached to men who are berserkers, so that explains that.” He rubbed some salve on the cut. “Though it is a damned and uncanny thing, the berserker gang. Those who have it normally foam at the mouth, and can't tell friend from foe, though they may be the mildest of men at other times.” He looked up at me shrewdly.

“No one has told me that I foam at the mouth. I do not think that it is quite the same thing.”

“It is a dangerous thing, I should think. I saw a man once, who went mad in battle, and staggered in here afterwards with wounds you could put your fist into. Said he hadn't even noticed when he got them. It was a wonder he could even stand; he died about an hour later. No, not a pleasant thing, this madness.”

“I am glad of it. It is a gift.”

Gruffydd gave me a quizzical look, but I did not wish to speak of “otherworlds and magic,” so I said nothing. He finished bandaging the wound. “Well, that is that,” he said, and straightened, stretched, then paused and looked at me again. “Unless you want to come back and help another time, after a battle. No, not immediately after a battle; if you have the madness, you probably collapse afterwards—but later. We would be glad of you. You have the instinct of a surgeon, and that is needed in these times.”

“Thank you,” I answered. “I will come.”

I left feeling very happy, and more warmed by those words than by all the praises given to me by warriors. Even if Arthur had refused me, I had fought in two battles, and fought well.

Arthur fought another, private battle at mid-morning the next day, on the east side of the bridge across the Bassas. It was a strange fight, against an uncertain enemy.

The High King met Cerdic and the two other Saxon kings, taking his own subject kings Constantius of Dumnonia and Eoghan of Brycheiniog and forty warriors besides. Each of the Saxon kings had brought a dozen men, which Arthur had permitted, so the group was a large one. Yet one would think there were only two men there: Arthur and Cerdic.

I came with Arthur's party, on Bedwyr's invitation, but I tried to stay out of sight near the back. Cerdic's eyes, though, swept Arthur's men until he saw me, and remained fixed on me for almost a minute before he looked at Arthur. The High King had been studying Cerdic all the while.

Cerdic bowed in the saddle of his roan steed, smiling a little. “
Ave
,
Artorie Auguste, Insularis Draco, Imperator Britanniarum,” he said, using Latin and all of Arthur's highest titles in a mocking tone.

“Greetings, Cerdic
cyning thara West Seaxa
,”
replied Arthur. “I am pleased to see that you recognize my status.”

“I recognize your strength,
imperator
,”
said Cerdic, still in Latin. “You have a victory.”

“Which you think you can reverse, a few years from now?”

Cerdic smiled and changed the subject. “I do not like these terms you offer.”

Arthur smiled back, a certain lightness touching his eyes. “Then offer other terms, king of the West Saxons. I will do my utmost to be just to all my subjects, even if they have been disobedient.”

“That is precisely the part of the terms I dislike most,” snapped Cerdic. “The West Saxons are not a nation subject to the emperor of the Britains.”

“All the provinces of Britain are subject to one emperor,” answered Arthur. “If you do not wish to be subject to me, you can always leave.”

Cerdic spat, the red look reappearing behind his eyes. “I made a nation here, Dragon…”

“Which I am willing to recognize.”

“…and it is my own nation, not yours or any other Briton's or Roman's.”

“I have no more desire to be king of the West Saxons than to be Protector of Dyfed. But I am the emperor.”

“I have heard otherwise, and from Britons.”

“I have other disobedient subjects beside yourself, Cerdic.” Arthur smiled again, even more lightly. “Come. You know that you will swear to my terms in the end, just as the other Saxon kings have sworn once already. Why must we stand here in the heat any longer than is necessary?”

Cerdic frowned angrily, but a faint look of puzzlement was beginning in his face. “And I must swear to recognize your claim to the
imperium
,
to support no usurpers nor make war against you, to withdraw my royal forces from Searisby—rig to Winceastra and leave no more than twenty men as a guard on
the border, which is to be at Wilton? And I must yield all claim to any lands west of that border, and obediently render you tribute at every year?”

“Why not? Most of the land east of Sorviodunum is thinly settled as it is. And as for obeying me and rendering tribute, you will not keep that oath any more than your fellows did, but it will give me more excuse to war on you when you break it.”

Cerdic almost smiled in response to Arthur's quiet amusement, but stopped himself. “And what of my fellow kings?”

“As agreed, they will renew their oath, in a new form, and pay additional tribute for the next few years in return for their sedition.”

The two Saxon kings snorted. They had paid no tribute since Uther had died, and obviously had no intention of beginning—though, should Arthur's northern campaign take less time than was expected, they might send something.

“If the Saxon nations are subject to the emperor just as the British provinces are,” Cerdic began again, “they should swear the same oath.”

“I have recognized that Saxons are pagans, and that to swear by the earth, sea, and sky in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit is meaningless to them. Now if you break your oath you will be able to explain it to your own gods and not the gods of strangers. It will be easier for you.”

Cerdic frowned again, and this time touched his sword. For a long moment he met and held Arthur's gaze. Then he smiled, not as he had smiled at first, nor as I had seen him smile in the two weeks I had been his thrall.