Pendragon 02 Pendragon Banner (71 page)

‘A young woman was there, heavy with child
she was, dark-haired. Much agitated.’ Arthur snorted. ‘So what is that to me?’ Standing,
Winifred walked elegantly behind the desk, stood at Arthur’s shoulder, leaning
slightly forward to read what he was writing, and to who. Winta of the Humbrenses?’
she said with genuine interest. ‘Will he go north to fight with you?’ Arthur
did not answer, merely grunted a response.

‘Oh, of course.’ Winifred smiled, more of a
smirk, ‘did you not agree a betrothal between his daughter and your Llacheu
some months back? You are allied kin now, are you not?’
A second grunt. Was there anything this damned woman did
not
know?
She idled
her fingers up his arm, rested them on the back of
his neck, bending closer, her breath warm on his cheek. ‘I
helped
birth the child when it came. It was a male, lusty, well
formed.’ She moved her hand to stroke his hair at
the nape of
his neck. ‘The mother has called him Medraut.’
Damn her to her Christian
hell! Arthur slammed the wooden
tablet to
Winta shut, angrily sealed it. His ally would have men
marching north
within a day of receiving the message, they would meet at Pengwern. He selected
a third tablet, began a similar urgent message for Enniaun of Gwynedd. The
first, to Ambrosius, was already on its way.

‘
One of the
Sisters,’ Winifred continued in her wheedling
tone, ‘said the woman, the young woman, was the one they call
the
Lady.’
Arthur’s stylus hovered over the wax,
his fingers going
tighter around the wood.

‘
I thought
that strange,’ Winifred added, ‘seeing as the
rumours announce that she
is dead.’ She ran her hand down his
back,
remembering him standing naked before her earlier. ‘You
must have heard
those same rumours.’ He had, but he said nothing, continued writing. The gossip
had passed quickly, scandal travelled faster
than a diving
falcon! The Lady was no longer living by her lake, they
said, and then, after a heavy rainstorm, the body of a dark-haired woman had
been found, water-bloated, throat cut. The Lady, they added, with a sorry shake
of their heads and signing the mark of protection, was no more. Only Arthur
knew the fast-running tales to be wrong, the body was Brigid, not the Lady.

Winifred was reading what he had written. She
pointed to a word. ‘That is spelt wrongly.’ Irritably, Arthur corrected it.

Going back to the stool,
Winifred settled herself comfort
ably,
arranging her skirts, her veil. ‘I thought it strange that this
woman,
this young woman who might or might not have once
called herself the Lady, should wear around her neck, dangling
from
a rope of plaited hair, a battered, old, gold ring.’
Arthur looked up sharply. Winifred smiled. Ah, her guessing
was
right then! She held her hands to the flames, waited a moment before adding, ‘I
would regret having to tell your wife
that her son has yet another brother
he may need to fight for the
title
Pendragon.’
Coming
slowly to his feet Arthur hissed, ‘You bitch!’

‘There again,’ she said, admiring the spark
of a ruby ring on her left hand, ‘I may decide to keep the information to
myself.’
She looked round, up at him as he
stood over her. ‘For a price.’

‘
Which
is?’ • Her laugh had never been a pleasant sound to Arthur’s ears. ‘Oh,
husband!’ She looked at him. ‘You know my price.’
Arthur stood glaring at her a moment, considering all the
ways he
could kill her, here and now, but then he turned on his heel, stalked to his
desk and selected a small piece of unused
parchment.
He wrote quickly, a few words only, affixed his seal
and flung it across
the room at her. Swarming to his feet, he took up the letter to Enniaun that he
had not yet finished, and
the stylus, and
stormed towards the door. He flung it wide after
snarling, ‘Go back on
your word, bitch, and I will personally hang you and your brat.’ Half-way
through the door he added, ‘Don’t bother to read it, the spelling is in order.’
Alone, Winifred held the scroll a moment
between her
hands at her breast. She
was shaking. Had it been that easy,
after
all these years, that easy? Reverently, she read what
Arthur had put.

I acknowledge
Cerdic,
the child
of Winifred,
as
my second-born
son.
And then his
name, simply written, Arthur, Pendragon.

§
XXXI

Hueil swept down through
the bracken-covered hills above
Caer
Luel. The impoverished town, with no stomach for a
fight,
threw the gates wide and welcomed him inside, granting the respect due a
warrior prince of Dalriada.

In return, Hueil
magnanimously forgave the town its
misguided
support to the Pendragon, and made no mention
that his Lady, Queen Morgause, had been held a prisoner
there.
That was the Pendragon’s doing, not the town’s,
it was Arthur
and his kind who would repay
the insult. Hueil wooed and won
them with glowing words and a brimming
smile. The Caer
needed protection? From
whom — the Picti? Na, they had been
Morgause’s
people, they would not attack her friends. Dalriada?
But were not
Dalriada, Caer Luel and the proud people of the
North all brothers? Hueil had come to free them, not fight
them!
And they cheered him, carried the young Lord high on their shoulders. No one
contradicted that Morgause was now nothing to the Picti, no one mentioned that
Hueil’s true blood
brothers had been forced
to flee from his sword into the safety of
Gwynedd. No one referred to the fact that Hueil had
overthrown his
own father. What did the North get from the Pendragon? Poverty and starving
bellies, that’s what! Arthur took their gold and their grain to feed and pay
his own, and laughed at these western Northmen for their cowardice. No more,
Hueil had cried, no more will we bow and scrape to a Southerner who cares not a
poxed whore for us!
Hueil resumed his march
south, the entire British North with
him; the men who had backed Lot, who resented Arthur’s arrogance and the loss of face; Rheged, the fierce men of the
high hills that swept through the wild country to either side of
the Wall; his own men of Dalriada. An army swollen
by young,
eager men bound by the
common factor of the North, their
North. How easily they forget! A few
years before they were
fighting each other —
those very same men who now walked side
by side had vied for the supremacy of kingship. But the warrior
kind
were fickle. All they needed was a balanced spear, a sharpened sword and a
leader to follow. The reason mattered
little,
as did who it was they fought. The blood-warming lure of
a battle song
paid small heed to detail.

They followed the old Roman roads, marching
at a steady
pace through high, wooded
country to Deva. The elders of a few
farmsteadings tucked safe in
sheltered valleys listened as they
passed
with little concern, the young men took up their hunting
spears and warm, wolf-skin cloaks and climbed the
bleak hills to
the high roadway to
join them. It was a chance that Hueil took,
seeking a fight so close
behind the winter snows, but the North was used to the snarl of bad weather,
and he planned not to
linger at the City of
Legions. He wanted Morgause free, Arthur
dead and the North as his
own. He had the land and its people, now, with the months of careful planning
set into motion, he would have the other two.

§ XXXII

Under forced pace,
Arthur reached Pengwern, The Alder Grove
Between
the Three Rivers,
within five days. He made
camp on
the defensive ridge
above the crags, overlooking the marsh and
its
clusters of winter-shabby alder trees. One thing his damned first wife had not
known, had not told him, was that Amlawdd
was
coming behind, along the march of the Hafren. Ahead,
Hueil was settled on the high, sandy ground that
lay behind the
two great estuaries to either side of Deva. The Artoriani
were caught between the two. The Pendragon could not turn to face Hueil knowing
that whore-son from the south was at his back; but Hueil had the more men,
could do a damn lot of damage
were he to
set them hunting off the leash. And where was Hueil headed — south to meet with
Arthur, Deva to rescue Morgause
or into Gwynedd? His father and brothers
were there — a
cowardly lot of god-mumbling
nanny-goats admitted, but it was
possible
Hueil still counted them a threat. Help for the
Artoriani was coming.
Winta was on his way to the meeting place, but where was Gwynedd? Gwenhwyfar
had been watching Arthur as he listened, grim-lipped, brows frowning, as his
scouts made their report about Amlawdd, their sweat-grimed faces reflecting the
sparks
and flare of the mounded fire. The
glow shed enough light into
the darkness of this moonless night to see
men’s faces clearly, read their expressions, their slipped thoughts. She needed
no light to recognise her husband’s biting anger, felt it with him.

Arthur had made no
objection when she had calmly
announced
that she was riding with him to this war. The
marching would be hard, the fighting too, but Gwenhwyfar
had
never been a cosseted woman, she had marched
with him
before and would, no doubt, do so
again in the future. The short
time
the Artoriani needed to prepare was enough for her also to
make ready.
Now that they had a Caer of their own she could accompany Arthur, now that
Llacheu was older, now that she had no small children. For Gwenhwyfar it was as
if she had never borne that last child. There was nothing, except an ache
in the back of her mind to remind her of another
dead-born son.
Arthur had not told her the truth, and she had no cause
to think differently. And a war-trail allowed little time for thinking, which
is why she had come, why Arthur had agreed.

‘
I’ll ride
into Gwynedd, see what delays my brothers’
coming.’ She smiled, quite
calm, as the men seated around Arthur’s fire turned to look at her. One or two
protested, others
murmured agreement. ‘I can
stir the fire in their winter-fat
bellies.’
It was something practical she could do, that would
leave the men free
for the fighting that would soon come. Gwynedd should already have been with
Arthur, should have
been waiting. His
messengers used only the best horses.
Gwynedd should already have sewn
these Hafren marches so tight that Amlawdd would be caught in the rear with
nowhere
to go, save home. But no one had
seen sign nor word of
Gwynedd.

As she got to her feet,
Arthur caught at her hand, holding
her,
half risen, her face level with his. ‘Leave Llacheu with me?’
He
asked it as a question, unsure whether he was making the right choice, but she
smiled, nodded. ‘I ride fast, husband, and
take
only a small escort. For all the dangers, he will be safer with
you.’
She was about to turn away from the heat and light of the fire, but he caught
her tighter, twisting himself around to add, ‘Take Ider and ...’ He glanced at
his officers seated circular around the fire, good men, all of them trustworthy
and capable in a fight. Geraint, old Mabon wearing his beloved wolf-skin
and who had served under Uthr, Gwenwynwyn,
Peredur;
others who had affectionate names, men such as ‘Iron-Fist’ and ‘Boar’s
Beard’. Arthur’s eye fell on Meriaun, Gwenhwyfar’s cousin. They had once
quarrelled, Meriaun and his uncle, Enniaun of Gwynedd, and the anger between
them had never healed. Arthur had to make a decision, the right decision, who to
send with Gwenhwyfar across the marshes of these three rivers and up into
Gwynedd, because word, brought quietly in the night to Arthur’s ears, was that
Gwynedd was too tied with her own problems to enter this war. He might need
Meriaun if
he had to meet Amlawdd or Hueil
within the next few days, but
then, so might his Cymraes. ‘Go with her,
Meriaun, you also know the ways through the mountains.’ Meriaun had anticipated
the order, was straight to his feet, saluting and turning on his heel to go
select men and horses, Gwenhwyfar leaving with him to say farewell to Llacheu,
to fetch her warmest cloak.

Arthur waited by the makeshift gateway, a
sturdy tree, cut and hefted across the gap in the crumbling old earthworks that
had once served as his stronghold’s defences. He stepped out from the shadows
as they rode up, his wife, Meriaun and the
guard
of thirty well-armed, best-trained men, put his hand to
her horse’s neck as she halted, the animal
side-stepping, tossing
its head at the exciting prospect of a night
ride.