Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (98 page)

And then, following on its thunder, the tide did come in, racing between the horns of the gate as it had between the horns of the cliff, a tide of Savage feet, of Savage voices, of Savage smells, that swept above me as I lay on the ground, as I rolled over and over upon my crushed ribs, the desire to get out of the way, somewhere to safety, overruling the pain. I expected to be stabbed as I lay on the ground, but the men who rushed over me, stepping on my back, were too fixed on a distant prey to bother
me. I pulled myself to the wall for a backing, and watched the Savages charge against the line of the Household. Owain held the centre, but, laying about him, as furious as Bladulf with his flail, he was still pressed back. But when I thought he was sure to be overwhelmed, his flanks being eased away from where they depended on the house walls for protection, I heard the cry of the Virgin’s name, and Precent charged past me, leading the men from the circuit of the walls. He did not assail directly the backs of the men facing Owain: instead, he flung his force into the gateway, separating the Savages inside the walls from those outside, sending the attackers outside fleeing from the gate by the sheer ferocity of his face and voice. Then, while some hurriedly piled up stones in the gate, others turned on the Savages trapped inside. They killed them all, in time.

Silence came again. It is a vice of the Savages, that, repulsed once, they do not repeat the attack, but withdraw and then come at you again in a different way. Now, there was nothing to remind us that there had been an attack but the piles of dead in the gate, theirs and ours. Aidan came limping to me, and Precent with him, in their own time. It is the first rule of war, to settle with the enemy’s wounded before you help your own. I asked them, ‘How is Morien?’

Aidan helped me to sit up, and pointed. From under the heap of stones that had been the gatepost of Cattraeth, protruded Morien’s feet. No more of him could be seen. I wept. I had brought him to Cattraeth. Morien, who had spread fire upon the enemies of the Romans; now his spark was quenched, the fire of his eyes, that used to dazzle the Savages in battle, was now put out.

It was painful enough to be lifted up to sit. When Aidan put his arm beneath my shoulder and helped me to stand, the pain of my ribs and my leg, when I stood on it, ran through me worse than any sword. I wept aloud, and fainted. I do not know how long I was unconscious, but it was long enough for my comrades to carry me a little way, and take off my mail and bandage me around the body to give some support. They washed my cuts with mead, which was all we had, there only being one well in Cattraeth, and that dry. I looked around me, to see how many of the Household were left here in Cattraeth. I saw only how few we were. Only, Owain still
led us, still the Raven banner flew over us. Still Bradwen, unwounded, knelt beside me. Owain came to talk to me.

‘There is an end of fighting for you,’ he told me. ‘There is no weapon you can lift with broken ribs.’

‘I can see one weapon I can use,’ I replied. I pointed to Owain’s crossbow, with a leather bag holding dry strings and twenty quarrels tied to the stock. ‘I brought that with me, through the night. At least we have that, whatever else has been lost.’

‘Aye, I have lost heavily,’ Owain agreed. It is true, I thought, near on two hundred good men have gone, that had mothers and sweethearts to weep for them: all lost, all lost, and the land of Mordei lost with them. But he went on, ‘All my baggage, with my two silver cups, and the coronet of a Prince of Cornwall, all lost. And, worst of all, my greyhounds – I have not seen them since the middle of the night march. My poor dogs – I wonder if I will ever see them again.’

That was the measure of Owain, of his humanity, that made us love him – in the wreck of the Household, it was his greyhounds, which he loved, that he wept for. And I? I asked Aidan, ‘When you carried me, and I fainted, I did not cry out, did I?’

‘Indeed you did, Aneirin,’ he answered, ‘but any man would have cried in that state.’

‘What did I cry?’

‘You cried one name.’

‘I called for Bradwen?’

‘You called for Gwenllian.’

And she, at least, knew nothing of Cattraeth.

The Savages’ Herald stood on the green grass before the walls, a scarlet stain on the green. His cloak was red as ours. More scarlet than the poppy was it, more crimson than the brave red blood. Redder it glowed than the flame in a man’s thatch, than the sun on a fine morning that tells of evil weather to come. There he stood on the green grass, livid against the green trees. When I closed my eyes to shut him out, I could still see him, a magic green against a curtain of red.

We stood on the wall in the breach where the gate had been, where we had first made a barrier of birch-poles, and which we now had stopped with stones. I sat on a stone, leaning against the parapet, because it hurt me too much to stand.

The Savage came slowly towards us. In his right hand he waved a green branch. His left hand he held empty above his head. Now we could see his clothes beneath the cloak. Once, perhaps, his tunic and trousers had been red also, but now they were patched and darned and scattered with pieces in all colours, yellow and green and blue and brown. Through the unmended rents, and there were many, and few of them new, we could see the flesh. He wore no armour.

No, this was no Judge, no Bard that Bladulf had sent to us as a Herald. The hand that held that green branch had never held an ivory staff, nor played on the man-high harp. On days of audience and at feasts, this man would be close to the throne, without doubt, but he did not sit at the King’s side, nor stand behind his throne. Instead, he danced and tumbled before the King. He turned somersaults and walked on his hands. He juggled balls, and balanced sticks on his nose. And when he had finished, he did not even have a seat at table, or a dish and cup to eat and drink from. No, he would sit on his haunches and beg like a dog, and the King would throw him a half-picked bone and a crust of alesoaked bread to gnaw on, if he were pleased. But if the King were not pleased, then the courtiers would know it without telling. They would pelt this man with broken pots and oyster-shells, thrown with malice, to hurt, and laugh to see him leap and dodge and bleed and beg for mercy. This was no Herald who came to talk to us, under the signs of truce, across the field where our dead lay tumbled on the broken stones of the walls of Cattraeth. I told Owain, ‘Bladulf has sent us his Jester.’

The envoy came closer, to within shouting distance. He walked daintily, his feet close together. He stopped and called out, ‘
Frith! Frith!
’

‘What is that gibberish?’ asked Precent. ‘It is like the barking of a dog.’

‘He says, “Peace, Peace,”’ I told him. ‘He wants to parley. Should we let him come any closer? I would not, myself. What will you do, Owain?’

But Precent spoke first, spitting. ‘A Jester? I would not soil my tongue. Do not disgrace yourself, my Prince. Let me take a bow and kill him where he stands. It is a weapon I would not use on a man, but on a jester—’

I had a sudden thought. ‘No, Precent, if we kill their messenger, will they not then kill one of ours?’

‘A messenger to them? A Herald to them?’ This was Owain who spoke at last. ‘How would we ever wish to send a Herald to those Savages? What would we want to say to them? We have no need to worry about reprisals. All we have to do is to keep ourselves safe here and kill as many as we can, till the Elmet men
come up. We can kill this Herald, if we want to, with impunity. But I do not wish to kill him.’

‘If we are safe, then we may as well kill him at once,’ said Precent. ‘It will be one fewer for Elmet to deal with. If we
are
so safe.’

‘Safe or not safe, it makes no difference.’ Owain was firm of voice. ‘There will be no killing of a man who carries a green branch. It is below the honour of a Prince, or at least of a Prince of Cornwall.’ He did not say ‘whatever the Picts do’, but he meant it, and we knew that. ‘I will not kill that poor harmless creature.’

‘But I am not a Prince of Cornwall, or of anywhere else,’ I insisted. ‘And this is no poor harmless creature. Look how tall he is. He would not come up to my breast, if I were able to stand. He is a dwarf. And now look again at his face. Do you see it as clear as I do? Hairless and plump it is as a woman’s. There was never need for a razor on that face. It is neither man nor woman. It is one of those sexless things that a real man would die rather than touch. Filth is what they are throwing at us. Give me the bow, Precent. You are right. We ought to kill him – it would be an act of virtue before Heaven and the Virgin. A thing like this cannot be a Herald. Let me do it. I am the better shot.’

‘Only a harmless, sexless dwarf at best: at worst, a devil,’ agreed Precent. ‘It would not do the slightest harm to kill him. Owain, let Aneirin kill him if he wants to. Here is the bow. Lay off two fingers for this wind, to the right, and allow for being ten feet above him. Hit him first time, like a deer. If you miss him, he will run and we will have no time for a second shot.’

There was none of all the Savages I wanted more to kill. There was no need to tell Owain how well I knew this one. It would give me a little peace through the long night to come. I cranked back the bow-string, and it hurt me, but the pain of my ribs added strength to my hand. But Owain still held his hand before me so that I could not raise the bow to my shoulder.

‘And a Jester,’ Precent went on, seeing Owain stand so still. ‘Bladulf is doing this as an insult. A Jester? Talk with him, Owain, and all the Kings of Britain will laugh at us. The Household of Mynydog will itself be a jest in every corner of the Empire, a matter for giggling at on feast-days, for mockery in Halls. There is not one of us would ever dare again go into the company of
warriors. Jest with him, Owain, and it will be our own honour you will jest away, and our lives too.’

‘And what kind of jest would I be if I killed a dwarf?’ Owain asked. ‘Would
you
want his blood on your hands, Aneirin, grandson of Cunedda? Dwarfish blood, jester blood, will that be a thing to boast about at feasts? Will you take his head to hang on a wall, or his hide to curtain a door? Nobles fight with nobles, I tell you, freemen with freemen. A prince may aim at a King, but there is nobody here so low born or so badly nurtured that he could think of killing a dwarf.’

Owain stood up in the gap in the wall. He waved his arm. The dwarf began to move forward, slowly, cautiously, as if ready at any moment to turn and run. You have seen a bear approach the tethered kid, while you sit in the tree above with your crossbow? So he came towards us. Owain, standing there in full view, took off his helmet. He handed it to Bradwen. She took it. She had said nothing while we argued. Now she spoke, as if she had been saving her words to the end, to when there was nothing left but pleas that Owain might listen to. She said, ‘Don’t talk with him. There is a treachery in his walk. Look at his gait, soft and wary. A real Herald believes in his green branch: he does not. If he does not trust us, we ought not to trust him. We have seen no enemy so deadly, Owain, since we passed the Wall. Kill him, Owain, or let Aneirin or Precent kill him.’ She was almost crying. I had not seen her tears since she was a little girl. ‘My love, I want to sit with you again in the Hall of Eiddin. I want to ride with you to Cornwall. Do not risk all that for a whim of your honour. There are few of us here now out of all who started. Anything the Savages do is meant to harm us. Do not talk with him. Let us only wait here till the Elmet men come to us.’

The dwarf had stopped, no more than two lance lengths away. He could tell his danger from the tone of our voices. He was too close, now, to escape if anyone chose to throw a spear at him, or launch a bolt, even if they missed the first time.

Owain looked down at him, proudly, fiercely. Never had I seen him look more kingly. I have never seen any man look more a King. If this is how Kings look in Cornwall, then lucky they are there. I have never seen Gwyddno at his crown-wearing in
Harlech, or Arthur in his Hall at Caerleon in the midst of all the Household of the Kings of Britain, but I swear they can not look half as kingly as Owain did that day. Even now, and there are men who were not born on the day of Cattraeth who have died of old age already, I can shut my eyes, and see him, as he stood in the breach of the walls, looking at all the army of the Savages. His red curls hung down on his shoulders like red snakes, twisting and hissing at the Savages of their own strength. His green eyes showed all the fury of the winter sea, the light sparkled in them like the white foam. From his unlaced mail coat his neck stood out brown and firm, the strong pillar of Britain, to carry that noble head, dear to us as the head of Bendigaid Vran to his followers. So we all looked in love at him, and Bradwen wept, who now knew war, and had seen how many men had died around the Raven banner, that she should come so far unwounded. Owain laughed at the dwarf, who was used to it, surely, and turned his back on him, to say to Bradwen, and to all of us, ‘Think who I am, and who is the man you have chosen. Mark’s son of Cornwall am I, that shall be King of Cornwall after him. I will lay at your feet, Bradwen, as your dowry, the heads of half a hundred Kings out of Ireland, dead by my sword. And how many heads have I not piled before you in these last days, how much land have I not given back to our own people? I tell you, I am not afraid of any living man—’

‘This is not a living
man
,’ I had the courage to interrupt him. ‘Look at that pale face, the bulging forehead, the chin that curves to nothing under the weak lips, the lank and wispy hair. This is one of the devils out of hell, or a wild beast that Bladulf has tamed to fight for him.’