Arthur

NINE

Charis was thankful to have her son returned to her alive. She mourned his blindness, but set to work at once to heal him. The normal serenity of life at the Tor yielded somewhat to the urgency of Myrddin's injury as the Lady of the Lake searched her wide knowledge of medicine and consulted with the good brothers of the Shrine.

Yet, in the end, they were forced to the conclusion that if Myrddin's sight were to be returned, it would be at the pleasure of the Gifting God. The efforts of men would avail little, so he must wait and let God work his will. Until then, Myrddin would wear a blind man's bandage.

Morgian was not destroyed, but her power was broken. She had fled and would trouble us no more. Myrddin did not think she could ever recover her powers. Once exhausted, he explained, they rarely return. In this, he may have been optimistic. But he knows these things better than anyone.

And then there was the problem of Lot. It was possible that Lot could have come to Llyonesse: he might have sailed the moment we left Caer Edyn. Considering the time we took on the way, it would not have been difficult for him to go ahead of us.

Still, I thought it unlikely. Gwalcmai was too deeply ashamed to say one way or another what he thought. He felt that his noble name had been dishonoured and his clan disgraced. Wretched and humiliated, it was all he could do to hold his head up. He dragged himself around the Tor – fairest of abodes in this worlds-realm! – the very image of despair. I tried my best to cheer him, but my words were little comfort. The wound to his northern pride cut deep.

I talked with Myrddin about this. 'Of course it is not Gwalcmai's fault. I do not condemn him. But I saw what I saw, Bedwyr. I cannot change that,' he insisted.

'But might you have been mistaken? Might it have been someone else?'

'Of course, it is possible,' he admitted. 'But this someone else wore Lot's face and spoke with Lot's voice – someone else so very like Lot that he must be Lot's twin.'

While Myrddin conceded that he might be mistaken, it did not get us very far. For Lot, as far as I knew, did not have a brother.

Nor was Gwalcmai any help. 'My father has no brother,' he confirmed sadly, 'Loth had but one son, and I have never heard of another.'

This was a problem without an immediate solution. So, I left it to God's care, and went about my own affairs. Myrddin would be well enough to travel in a few days' time, and I was anxious to return to Caer Melyn as swiftly as possible. The weather had turned windy and wet. The days were growing colder. As pleasant as it is, I did not wish to winter on the Glass Isle. We must leave soon if we were to leave at all before spring.

Charis, fearing for her son, was reluctant to let us go. Yet she understood our need and showed me how to change the cloth over Myrddin's eyes, and how to prepare the mud mixture that would soothe her son's burned flesh. From the thick-wooded west side of Shrine Hill, I cut a long staff of rowan for him, so that he would not stumble; it gave him the look of a druid of old, and many who saw him took him as such.

Avallach gave us the pick of his stables; and we took a horse for Myrddin and left the first clear day. The ship waited where we had left it. I paid the fisherman who kept it for us; and we settled the horses on board and then pushed off.

The day was bright and the wind fresh. Yet, when I saw the land receding behind us, a pang of grief pierced me like an arrow. For we were leaving Pelleas behind, and I knew in my bones that we would never see him again.

If my grief throbbed like a wound in my flesh, how much greater was Myrddin's?

'He is gone,' he lamented in a voice so soft it broke my heart to hear it. 'A bright star has fallen from heaven and we will see it no more.'

'How can you be certain?'

'Peace, Bedwyr,' he soothed. 'If he were still alive do you think I would spare myself, even a moment? When in my madness I cowered in the forest, it was Pelleas who found me. He searched for years and never gave up. How could I do less?'

Gwalcmai heard all this and, upon disembarking at Abertaff, he mounted his horse with us, but soon turned onto a southern track. I called after him, 'Caer Melyn is this way! Where do you think you're going?'

He paused and looked back. 'To find Pelleas!' he answered. 'I will not sit at meat with Arthur until I have found him.'

'Gwalcmai!'

The headstrong young warrior set his face to the south and raised his spear in farewell. 'Greet my brother for me, and tell him what has happened.'

'Tell him yourself! Gwalcmai, come back!'

'Let him go,' said Myrddin. 'Let him do what he must.'

'But you said Pelleas was dead.'

'He is.'

'Then his search is senseless.'

"'No,' Myrddin said. 'His search is redemption itself. He may not find Pelleas, but perhaps he will find and reclaim his honour. I tell you the truth, if he stays he will sicken with remorse. Let him go, and he will come back to us a champion.'

Few there are who can stand against the Emrys' inscrutable wisdom. I am not one of them. I did as I was told and granted Gwalcmai leave to go where he would.

Arthur accepted this decision. In view of all that had happened he could do no less, though it chafed him to lose so fine a warrior as Gwalcmai had shown himself to be. He lamented Myrddin's blindness, but was glad to have him returned alive. And Caer Melyn was so busy with preparations for winter that we could not dwell over-long on the mystery of Lot's treachery. We had neglected the stronghold for the whole of the summer, and there was much to do before the icy winds howled down from the north.

We were kept busy during the long winter, too: mending weapons and making new ones, and repairing tack, equipment and wagons. What with all the hammering, sharpening, burnishing and polishing, we might have been such a city of smiths as Bran the Blessed encountered in one of his fabled journeys.

But Arthur knew the coming campaign would be hard fought. He wanted everything to be ready. When Bors returned from Benowyc in Armorica, the Duke aimed to sail to Caer Edyn. For the next attack, he reasoned, would come at Britain's new shipyards.

In this he was not wrong.

Snow still clung to the sides of the mountains when we set out. The wind that filled our sails also cut through our cloaks and set our teeth chattering in our heads. The coastal waters were not as rough as we expected and, after only a few mishaps wherein one or another of our inexperienced seamen floundered or lost the wind, the fleet made good time.

Ectorius had not been idle through the winter, either. He rode down to the new docks to welcome us with the report that five new ships awaited our inspection in the Fiorth.

'Come and see these sleek-hulled beauties,' crowed Ector. 'Lot's wrights are a marvel. As long as we kept them supplied with timber, they worked. Why, we cut the trees and they worked right through the winter and never a grumble about the cold.'

'But I gave them leave to return to Lot in the winter,' said Arthur.

'Is that not what I am saying myself?' replied Ector. 'Lot deemed it best to keep them here. You driving off the barbarian horde saved his ships, so he had no need of them in Orcady.'

'When did Lot leave Caer Edyn?' I asked, hoping to resolve the mystery of his appearance in Llyonesse.

'Well… ' Ector pulled on his red beard. 'It was late.'

'How late?' Arthur asked. He understood what I was after.

'Well, now I think of it, not all that late. Before the Christ Mass, it was.'

'How long before the Christ Mass?'

'Not long – only a few days.'

'And the rest of the time he was here?"

'Where else would he be?' Ectorius was becoming suspicious.

'Are you sure?' I demanded. 'Lot did not leave and come back perhaps?'

'He was here, Lord Bedwyr. You yourself saw him. He was here, and here he stayed until the Christ Mass – or a little before, as I say.'

'You are certain?' said Arthur.

'It is God's truth I am telling,' swore Ector. 'Now then, what is this about?"

Arthur was reluctant to say, so I answered for him. 'Lot was seen in the south – after Lugnasadh, but well before the Christ Mass.'

'No,' Ector shook his head adamantly, 'it is not possible. I know who it is that sits at my board. Lot was with me here.'

So, instead of helping solve the mystery, I had only deepened it. Naturally, we did not speak a word of this to Gwalchavad, who had wintered with Ector and was there to greet us on our return from the south. We told him that his brother had gone in quest of Pelleas, but no more than that. Still, we wondered: who was this second Lot who had rescued Morgian?

The old Roman shipyards lay a short ride east along the coast. We heard the clangour of hammers and the shouts of the labourers before ever we saw the docks. But, coming upon them suddenly around a bend in the shoreline, I would have vowed the Romans had returned.

A whole forest of trees had been felled and stripped, and the logs stacked along the shore, where scores of men shaved, split and trimmed them. Fifty huts and lodges had been built – some to house the workers, some to house ships so that work could continue in bad weather. New wooden docks had been erected on the old stone pilings, and the channels dredged of silt so that the ships could be brought up for repair, or launched without waiting on the tide.

Everywhere I looked I saw men with tools of one sort or another. And the noise! The sawing, the chopping, the shouting – men bawling orders and answering with bellows, yells and roars. The gulls shrieked and chattered overhead, and windblown waves slapped the pilings smartly. The air smelled of fresh-cut wood and sweat, of sea-salt and sawdust. It was as if the world had suddenly woken from its long winter sleep and begun to work at shipbuilding.

Ectorius was proud of his accomplishment. And Arthur was at pains to praise him highly enough. 'You have worked a marvel here, Ector,' Arthur said. 'I will send you a fourth part of the tribute.'

Ector held up his hands in mild protest. 'Please, Duke Arthur, save what you have for your men. You will need it.'

'No.' The Duke was adamant. 'You cannot support this work alone. It is not right. From now on you will receive a portion of the year's tribute, and even then I will not think to repay the service you have done me.'

'What I have done,' said Ector, 'I have done for you, it is true. And for the saving of Britain. You are the only hope we have, Arthur.' The Bear of Britain put his arm on Ector's shoulder, and the lord of Caer Edyn embraced his one-time fosterling.

'Give me but twelve men of your like,' said Arthur, 'and I will restore the empire.' 'I care not for empires,' replied Ector, solemn and low.

'But I will live to see the High Kingship in your hand. That is my pledge and bond.'

'Then let us see these ships you are so proud of,' said Arthur lightly. 'Perhaps they will speed the day.' The ships rode low in the water. Five tight new vessels: clean-lined and ready rigged to sail. They were of Saecsen design for the most part, but their masts were sturdier and their prows sharper. Saints and angels, but Ector had braced those sharp prows with iron! I could see each one slicing the waves like the blade of a sword.

'They are made for fighting,' explained Ector. 'They will carry neither cargo nor horses, but try to outrace them and you will sooner catch the wind.'

Arthur scrambled down onto the dock and aboard the nearest ship. He stood on the planking, feet apart, fists on hips. 'I like it!' he called. 'You have done well, Ector, Ship Builder. I cannot wait to swing sword and heft spear from this sturdy sea fort!'

The Duke's words must have been carried across the sea on a swift wind, for they were heard as a challenge in the land of the barbarians, who rose up to answer in force.

Not five days later our feet were pounding onto the planking, and our hands slipping the mooring ropes, loosing those swift ships like hounds eager to meet the charging boar.

We had never fought aboard ship. And the sight of those blue-tinted sails and dark hulls slicing towards us did little to embolden us. But Arthur had taken the lead ship, and he ranged the other ships – commanded by Bors, Cai, Gwalchavad and myself – around him like the divisions of his Cymbrogi. We were a seaborne a/a!

The five new ships formed the sharp spearhead in the centre, moving out like gulls skimming the wavetops. The other ships – thirty in all, with thirty men each – followed in a solid wall behind us.

The Angli had fifty ships. At our sudden appearance, they turned to the south and made for the nearest shore – a wooded headland at the entrance to the Fiorth called Basas for the shallows surrounding it. Basas, an interesting name… it also means death.

The five foremost British ships drove straightway into the exposed flank of the enemy. If the Angli had known how fast were Arthur's ships, I think they would have retreated instead. But they had no way of knowing.

Each of Arthur's five struck an enemy vessel amidships. Bone-shattering, teeth-rattling collision! Screams of men! Deadly lurching and shuddering shock! Our iron-prowed warsteeds splintered the thin hulls of the Angli, crushing them like eggshells. The first five we engaged sank like stones.

We pushed away from the wreckage with our spears while fending off barbarians struggling in the water. The closer ships turned on us and we ducked behind our shields as the cruel axes of the Angli clattered against the hulls. Grappling-hooks of iron snaked through the air, caught, tightened, and drew those same ships to their ruin. With staves and swords and spears, we battled the Angli. Their narrow timbers were soon sluiced with blood.

Hefting spear and swinging sword on the heaving deck of a ship is, as Arthur suggested, not so very different from the back of a plunging horse. The Angli, as abashed at our sudden appearance as by our forceful challenge – the sea was theirs, they were used to running free rein along the coasts – shrank from the attack.

Enemy ships further off made for the shelter of a great rock standing by the towering headland, or law. Din-y-bas, it is called: Fortress of Death. And we immediately saw why it deserved its name.

For the Angli ships, heedless of the danger, drove into the shallows. The rocks waiting just below the surface of the water did their remorseless work. Pierced hulls cracked and men pitched into the water. Great the turmoil, loud the tumult!

Oaths to the hideous, one-eyed devourer, Woden, mingled with screams of anguish. The Angli abandoned their crippled ships and began swimming to shore. Several British ships broke formation and swept towards the pebbled shingle, intent on pursuing the landed invaders. The rest drove steadily on, surrounding the wallowing enemy fleet.

The rearmost Angli – caught between the rocks of Din-y-bas and the seaborne fury of Arthur – dropped sail and, with oars churning, began moving off the rocks. They swung and met Arthur head on. Alas, there were only five British vessels, or we might have made an end of it.

But it was twenty against five. And while we engaged the first five to reach us – sinking two of these outright – the others escaped. They did not even try to help their own, but made for the open sea. Perhaps the closing net of British ships behind Arthur discouraged them, pr perhaps the disaster of their ruined attack had unnerved them. Whatever it was, the barbarians fled.

In all, twelve enemy vessels were sunk and eleven more foundered on the rocks. We counted it a victory, although twenty-eight ships escaped. Arthur did not give chase, because the only British vessels with a hope of catching them were the new ones and out in the open sea those five would easily be out manned. Prudently, the Duke settled for a defensive victory and let the barbarians limp home to lick their wounds.

Ector and Myrddin had watched the battle from the ramparts of Caer Edyn. I say watched, for although Myrddin did not actually see it, Ectorius described what was happening in such detail that Myrddin well knew everything that had taken place.

The two of them were waiting on the new dock when we returned to the shipyard. 'Well done!' shouted Myrddin, thumping his rowan staff on the oak planking of the dock. 'Well done, Pride of Prydein! Long has it been since the warriors of Britain ruled the water marge, but that is changed from this day. Henceforth and to the Day of Doom will Britain reign over Manawyddan's bright realm. Welcome, glorious heroes! Praise and welcome!'

Myrddin's salute was heartening, but his praise was over-eager. For, though we had dealt the foe a staggering blow, they did not return to their home-shore. We learned later that, once out of sight, they simply turned south and sailed down the eastern coast where they were accustomed to finding unprotected bays and estuaries. And where also small barbarian settlements waited to welcome and aid them.

This they did, coming into the mouth of the Twide and running to ground in the dense forests that cover the Celyddon Hills. They hid there and waited while their messengers called forth weapons and warriors from their heathen homeland across the sea.

They waited, nursed then: wounds, and grew strong with the passing months. By midsummer we began receiving reports from Custennin, Lord of Celyddon, of their presence and activity. Arthur listened to the reports and concluded that they had were moving slowly inland up the Dale of Twide to circle in behind us at Caer Edyn.

Arthur increased our forces through the summer. Custennin of Goddeu, my kinsman Ennion of Rheged, Owain of Powys, and Ectorius. Out of kinship and unity of purpose, these had begun calling themselves the Men of the North. There were also several kings from the south: Cador ap Owen Vinddu of Cerniw, Ogryvan of Dolgellau, and Ceredig of Gwynedd with his son Maelgwn, as well as Maglos, Meurig, and Idris. Other nobles and chieftains joined us, too, so our ranks grew as the grain in the fields.

When the last of all these had assembled with us in Caer Edyn, we strapped sharp iron to our hips and helmed ourselves for battle. Cai, Ector, Bors, Gwalchavad and Cador boarded the ships, and we needed every one. As the sails dwindled on Muir Guidan, we mounted our horses and turned our faces towards die Eildon Hills and the dark forests of Celyddon beyond. Then did we ride out, fifteen thousand Britons, to face an enemy sixty thousand strong.

The way the bards have it, the glory was ours for the taking. Well I, Bedwyr, fought in every bloody battle and it is a far different song that I will sing.