In Winter's Shadow (41 page)

He looked back at me, puzzled. “Can’t you see?
Och ai
, then it is the end. But there is no more to the letter, only that I pray God’s mercy for us all. Rhys…” The servant caught his hand, “Rhys,
mo chara
, farewell. My lady, farewell—and if you can, tell my brother I loved him. I am coming.” He looked again into the empty air, smiling like a child. Beneath my hand I felt the muscles of his arm tense, realized that he was trying to sit up, and seized him and leaned against him. I felt his heart beat against me, once, twice, pause…

Stillness. I sat up, looking at him desperately for a sign that he lived yet. But the look he had had all his life, the haunted brilliance, had vanished, and the face was almost unknown, my friend’s face and a stranger’s.

Rhys crossed himself. He was weeping silently. “Lord God have mercy,” he said, in British, then crossed himself again and added the accustomed form in the Latin of the Church, “Grant him eternal rest.”

“And let light perpetual shine upon him,” I replied mechanically. But I thought all light in all the world was dead or dying, and my own heart plunged in the darkness.

We pulled the blanket over Gwalchmai’s face, and I went over to the last, guttering torch and extinguished it. The day had broken, and the room was already streaked with new sunlight. When I opened the door into the adjoining room I saw that the morning fire had been lit, and a number of people were sitting about it, breakfasting on bread, cheese, and warmed ale.

“He is dead,” I told them all.

The monk nodded, took a last bite of bread, and dusted off his fingers. He was beginning to speak when another figure leapt up from beside the fire and shouted, “
Rhys!
”

“Eivlin!” Rhys shouted from behind me, and pushed past roughly. He and his wife locked together like a latch fitting into its place, each holding the other fiercely and painfully. Only when I saw them so did I realize how much each must have feared for the other—and realize how much I myself now longed for Arthur.

“Och, Rhys,” Eivlin said, as I moved from the door, “Rhys, it is your lord, it is the lord Gwalchmai, that is dead?”

Rhys nodded, tried to speak, and choked on the words.

“Yes,” I answered for him. “You came here looking only for me, then, Eivlin? Well, see to your husband. Will one of you,” I looked at the men by the fire, the monk and those who had slept in the room over the night, “tell Lord Sandde of this, and ask him to make arrangements for the burial. Tell him also that I have the message and that I will join him presently.” One of the men nodded, and went with me from the room, outside into the morning.

There was fresh snow upon the ground, and the sky was patched with clouds. While my messenger trudged up the hill I leaned against the outer wall of the house and swallowed the cold air in great gulps, crushing the letter and tablets against me. The pain about my heart seemed almost stifling. But I could not weep, and presently I started back up the hill to my own house, to wash and change before seeing Sandde. There was still much to be done that day.

I wrote letters all that morning to everyone I could think of who might be willing to provide additional supplies on credit—a desperately short list of names, but one very difficult to compile. In the afternoon, when I wrote to Arthur, the bulk of my letter was concerned only with the question of supplies. Only when I was done with it did I realize with a shock that I had not said that Gwalchmai was dead. After only a few hours, with the body yet waiting for burial, it seemed already a thing fixed.
You are tired
, I told myself, to still the wave of sickness that came over me then, and I dipped the pen in the ink and wrote out a full account. At the end, I ran out of space on the sheet of vellum, and had to end abruptly. Almost I added nothing more, but then, turning the page over I saw the amount of space I had left above the superscription, and I added, in my smallest lettering, “I escaped before Medraut could harm me. I want only to see you again. My soul, my dearest life, tell me to come and join you with Sandde and the army. But in all events, God defend you.” There was no more space, and the cramped letters seemed meaningless, set against the thought of his presence, so I added no more, but folded the letter over, sealed it, and gave it to a messenger. I sat for a moment staring at Sandde’s desk, wondering when Arthur would get the letter, of what he would be doing, and when we would see one another again. I wished then, and wished again many times afterward, that I had demanded another page of parchment and crammed the margins with words. But perhaps I did say what was most important—and perhaps I could not have said more if I had meant to.

We buried Gwalchmai that evening in the grounds of the monastery of Ynys Witrin. While the procession of mourners moved to the grave, Rhys held Gwalchmai’s horse, with the jeweled hilt of the sword gleaming beside the empty saddle. The stallion nickered earnestly when the body was brought out, recognizing it, but became increasingly uneasy as the monks prayed and chanted, and when the body was lowered into the ground, neighed loudly and fought to pull away from Rhys. When the burial was finished, Rhys slipped the bridle from the stallion’s head, and the horse cantered over to the grave and stamped about over it, looking about and sniffing the air and the ground, and then threw its head back and neighed. The monks crossed themselves and whispered.

“Let him be,” Rhys said and, turning on his heel, started back up the hill. I followed, and the other mourners and the monks dispersed. But when I glanced back, I saw the stallion, very white and splendid in the dusk by the damp grave, tossing its head and neighing again, and again. But in the morning the horse was gone. I feared for a time that someone might have stolen it, it and the sword that was supposed to burn any hand that drew it against its owner’s will. But such a horse, let alone such a sword, was too fine to be mistaken for another, or pass unremarked, and they were never heard of again, even in rumor. Gwalchmai had always claimed that the sword, and the horse, had come from the Otherworld. Perhaps the stallion did turn from that dark grave and run off through the night into a day that was now entirely separate from the Earth, to a place where no human grief could reach it, where no further love could hold it back. However that may be, it went, leaving only a few hoof marks around the new grave. And I did not have much time to worry about it.

Gwalchmai had told us that Arthur planned to reach the Saefern three days after leaving Searisbyrig—two days after he himself came to Ynys Witrin. Arthur would turn and ride for Camlann very rapidly for the main part of a night, then proceed more slowly through the various assembly points, collecting his men, and arrive near Ynys Witrin about noon on the second day from the Saefern, four days after we received his message. It was on the evening of the day before this that we had our second letter from him. It was very brief, and obviously written in haste. It acknowledged the receipt of my letter, and said that some of the supplies had indeed reached him. It agreed to the place Sandde had recommended for the ambush, and told Sandde to leave Ynys Witrin before dawn the following day, and conceal his forces at that ambush, as Arthur hoped to arrive there about an hour before noon.

“Medraut and Maelgwn are no more than five miles behind me,” he wrote. “I hope to keep them at that distance tomorrow. May you prosper!” then, written small, “Gwynhwyfar, my heart, do not go with the army. We will have no camp, and I could not risk you if we should lose the battle. But if all goes well, I will see you tomorrow in the evening. If it goes ill, remember always that I loved you.”

I read all but the last lines to Sandde, then remained seated, staring at the lines I had not read aloud. I thought that the lamp was flickering, but when I looked up I saw that it was only the trembling of my hand.

Tomorrow,” breathed Sandde. He took the letter from me and stared at it, as though he could wrestle out the meaning by looking at it hard enough. “Tomorrow, before dawn! And by tomorrow evening, it will all be over.” He jumped up and strode across the room, stood on one foot looking at the fire, twisting his fingers in his baldric. “How…how many men do we have now?” he asked.

“An army of two thousand, one hundred and seventeen,” I told him. I did not need to check the figures: they ran constantly through my mind. “And ninety-eight warriors, Including those we sent with the messages.”

“And Medraut and Maelgwn have how many?”

“Their army probably amounts to three thousand men. Their warbands, combined, and including those who have joined them since the beginning of the rebellion, probably amount to about a thousand trained warriors.”

“And the emperor has a thousand.”

“Something less than that now. There were men lost in Gaul.”

“But won’t some Saxons have joined him?” Sandde turned and studied my face anxiously. I shook my head: the Saxons would not trust the British in a British kingdom.

“We are outnumbered, then,” said Sandde; then earnestly, forcing cheerfulness, “Still, the numbers of trained warriors are evenly balanced, aren’t they? And the emperor, I have heard, is so accustomed to fighting against worse odds than this that this must seem nearly equal to him.”

“Arthur has fought against the Saxons at far worse odds, that is true,” I said, meeting his eyes. “But Saxons usually rely more heavily on half-trained peasants, and almost never have any cavalry. Part of Medraut’s army were members of the Family, and most of the other warriors will have profited by Arthur’s example, and have training that nearly equals that of his men. This will not be the same as fighting the Saxons. The enemy’s numbers will count.”

“Oh.” Sandde bit his lip, then came over and sat on the desk, still looking at me earnestly, his eyes very blue in the lamplight. “I have never been in a battle,” he told me. “I didn’t know what I was doing when I raised this rebellion against Medraut. It was simply that…that Medraut had a friend of mine put to death for treason, and that I admired Arthur, and no one else was doing anything. But now everyone expects me to tell them what to do, and I do not
know
what to do. Most noble lady…” He clutched my hand suddenly, “I know it is cowardly to speak this way, but you are like my mother, who understood. Please excuse it.”

I took his other hand. He was too young for it, I thought, far too young. I was indeed old enough to be his mother. “Don’t be afraid,” I told him, as quietly as I dared. “You have not failed your men once, and you will not fail them tomorrow. Our numbers are nearly even with the enemy, our cause is more just, and, moreover, we will have the advantage of surprise. Trust to God for the victory.”

He kissed my hands and pressed his forehead against them. “Lady Empress,” he whispered, then broke away, stood suddenly, fingering his sword. He straightened his shoulders and tried to smile. “It will go well!” he announced.

“It will, as God is just,” I returned. “And for you, at least, I need not fear, Lord Sandde. Indeed, I think that all in the battle will mistake you for an angel assisting the souls of the dead, and not a spear will be cast at you.” He tried to smile at this, feeble as the joke was. “Here,” I went on, “who shall we wake first tomorrow?”

I wondered, watching him as he settled to work at the business of moving the army, whether he would be living when the sun next set, and, if he lived, whether he would be able to stand so straight: whether he would come back blind, missing an arm, a leg, screaming on a stretcher. There would be plenty that would do so, and they would be brought to Ynys Witrin, for it was the nearest town to the battle where we had some control. I thought of my husband, wondering if he would come to me, and how.

***

Most of the army rose three hours after midnight, and marched out before dawn. Sandde went first, followed by the noble warriors who had joined him—a group which Medraut’s oppression had made small—then by the common army, roughly grouped in clans. Eivlin had already said farewell to her husband and his kin, and now stood beside me at the gate, huddled silently in her cloak. When the last pair of feet had tramped past the walls we remained staring after the force a while, watching as they wound down the pale road into the town at the hill’s foot, vanishing in the shadows of the dark marshes. Already the stars were pale, and the night air heavy with dew. When a cock crowed in the fortress I turned back and looked at the crowd of women, old men, children, scattered monks, and servants, who all waited expectantly for my orders. I wondered briefly why the authority had fallen so plainly to me, and not to Sandde’s clerk Cuall, who was waiting with the others. But I knew the reason. Cuall himself was bewildered with events, and no one else was willing and able to exercise the authority. In this crisis, no one cared what I had done, how much I might be to blame for what had happened. All that mattered was that I was the emperor’s wife, and used to riding the storm.

“Nothing will happen until noon,” I told them. “Go back and rest while you can. When it is time to send out parties to help with the wounded, I will have you called—but you will have to hurry then, and hopefully most of you won’t be needed.” And I smiled, trying to look as though I feared only that the victory would be too swift for us to get the carts out in time. It won a few smiles, a ragged cheer; an old man took my hand to his forehead as I walked back through the crowd, and exclaimed that I’d soon be Empress in Camlann again. I laughed, and said that he would soon be back on his farm. When I was back in my own house, and alone again, it was, of course, another matter. I sat on the bed waiting and waiting for the morning, twisting my hands together, rubbing the finger where once I wore the ring carved with the imperial dragon.

That morning seemed to have sprung free from the wheel of time, and hung off apart by itself, unmoving, unending. I had every vessel and water trough in the fortress filled with water, took inventory of our food supplies again and again, arranged again with the surgeons which of them would go to the battlefield and which stay in Ynys Witrin to treat those who were brought back; I went over the places we had cleared for the wounded, I found wood for the fires, and still the sun waited eastward of the zenith. The site of the ambush, I knew, was just by the turning of the main road onto the west road that led to Camlann. Arthur hoped that Medraut would think he was making for the fortress itself, and perhaps expect Sandde to meet him there. He could not help but know that Arthur meant to meet Sandde, and, since he had left Camlann under only a light guard, it might be expected that the emperor would try to take the fortress itself, and meet his ally there. But still, Medraut might expect and be prepared for an ambush. But even if he did, there was no way of imposing formations on Maelgwn’s peasant army, and the precise place and time would be unknown to him. He would have to hurry to catch Arthur before he could reach Camlann, so Arthur’s plan should have some effect.

At noon I sent the carts out, with the surgeons and servants who could provide emergency treatment on the battlefield, and with some water, food, and fuel. Winter is a bad time for a war. The casualties are higher, for the wounded die quickly unless they can be brought to shelter and kept warm. It would be very difficult for us to care for them properly, ten miles from the site of the battle, short of horses for the carts, and, assuming that Medraut’s forces took the main road, with an enemy army between us and the battle. But we hoped that Arthur had brought some extra carts with supplies from the assembly points, and that some of those who were injured could be dragged free and sent off to us.

In the midafternoon a cart did arrive, not one of those we had sent out, but one of Arthur’s. It was driven by a peasant with a crippling leg wound and filled with men mostly from Sandde’s army, one of them dead, the rest needing attention. I saw to it that the cart was unloaded, and questioned the driver.

“Indeed, we reached the place in good time, noble lady,” he told me. He seemed to be in no pain, though his eyes were dark with shock. “We had time to build the fires and warm ourselves, have a bite to eat and a rest, before the emperor came and told us to put the fires out. The enemy came up before noon, soon after the emperor. We ran at them.”

“Did they march into the ambush?” I asked. “Did Arthur stay with you, or go up the road? Where were the cavalry?”

“I…I don’t know. We ran at them, and when we reached them it was all shoving and shouting. They were Maelgwn’s men, farmers like me, not warriors. One of them stabbed me, and I fell down, and my cousin Gwilym jumped over me and went on at them.”

“Where were the warriors, then?”

He waved his right hand vaguely. “At the side. It was very confusing, noble lady, with the whole air shining with spears, and shouting on all sides, and men killing and screaming. I did not know what was happening. After I was hurt, I crawled away, in case the rest came and trampled me. When I got back to where the fires were, there were other hurt men there, and one or two cowards who had run away and sat crying, and someone told me to drive the cart here. I can drive the cart back, if you wish, my lady. I can’t walk, but I can still drive.”

“You have done well,” I told him, despairing of learning more. “Rest first; we have plenty who can see to the cart, and you must have your leg looked after.” And I doubted that he would be able to drive the cart after his leg was seen to, for he had bound it up so tightly and at such an angle that I suspected it would have to come off.

As he was being helped into the house we had prepared for the wounded, another cart drove up, this time one we had sent out earlier.

I had little time to question the men it carried, for they brought an urgent demand for fuel. It was beginning to snow, and the battle had still been raging when they left, and some of the men needed to rest and were freezing. I ran off to make arrangements to have the returning carts reloaded with fuel, and when I returned to the sick houses, yet another cart had arrived. This one contained a trained warrior, a member of the Family, who lay quietly among the peasants, looking at them contemptuously if they moaned. When they moved him from the cart he flinched, clenching his teeth together, but made no noise. He was so covered in blood that it was hard to see where he had been hurt.

“Goronwy,” I said, and he looked up at me. His set face relaxed a little.

“They said you were here,” he told me. “Good. I’ll be well treated, then.”

“As well as we can manage. What is happening in the war? No, tell me when you are inside.”

Inside the house, we waited for a surgeon to finish with the others. Goronwy kissed my hand. “Wise lady, who always knew that Medraut was treacherous,” he muttered. “The lying dog, the weasel…to think that I once trusted him.”

“He was good at lying,” I said. “But what has happened? Did he enter the ambush?”

“No. We had no such good fortune. No, he stopped at the turning of the road, and began preparing his men in a hurry. He had his—Maelgwn’s—army in the fore, to take the first onslaught, and all the trained men behind, and the cavalry behind them. He knew what he was doing. We…have you heard it? No? We’d sent our cavalry back northward, some distance, so that they were behind Medraut, and sent our infantry down the road toward Camlann, round the turn, so that they would not be seen until Medraut was into the ambush. Sandde’s army was in the hills, just by the turning itself. When Lord Sandde saw that Medraut had realized we were there, he told his men to charge at once, and galloped down the hills straight into Medraut’s army. A fine man, Sandde. I hope he lives through the day.”

“So do I. Did his charge carry, then?”

Goronwy began to shake his head, winced. “No. They went deep into Maelgwn’s army, with heavy losses on both sides, and then Medraut sent his infantry in, and Sandde’s peasants were chased up the road, straight into the Family.” He smiled grimly. “And that was the last I saw of them, for Medraut had ordered his cavalry about, suspecting that we were in the hills somewhere near, and we had to ride quickly to prevent their encircling our infantry. Oh, we met them, sure enough, and we were winning. It was a fierce fight; I’m sorry to be missing it.”