Born of the Sun (31 page)

They did not get word of Edric’s whereabouts for three days. Apparently he had gone in pursuit of Cutha before turning north. When Ceawlin’s scouts finally located Edric, his war band was some twenty miles south of Bryn Atha, on the Calleva road.

Within four hours of learning his whereabouts, Ceawlin was on the war road himself. With him went his own thanes, Cutha’s thanes, and ten Britons. Two of the British volunteers and the wounded Erick were left at Bryn Atha to guard the approaches to the villa. Ceawlin’s command numbered forty-nine in all, and according to Ine and Cutha’s other men, Edric was leading some two hundred. One difference was that all of Ceawlin’s men were mounted.

“For the kind of tactics I have in mind, speed will be essential,” Ceawlin had told Naille, and though the Briton had grumbled, he had provided horses for all of Cutha’s thanes as well as the British boys.

“Arthur’s successes came because of his cavalry,” he said to Ceawlin when the horses were delivered to Bryn Atha. “Never did I think I would be mounting Saxons to follow in his footsteps.”

Ceawlin privately thought that the British stories about Arthur and his cavalry were greatly exaggerated. It simply was not possible for a horseman to keep his seat under the shock of a heavy lance-thrust. Ceawlin himself was one of the finest horsemen in Winchester and he knew he would be unseated should he try to fight foot soldiers from horseback. But, prudently, he said none of this to Naille, only smiled and thanked the Briton for his valuable contributions.

Bryn Atha seemed deserted once the men had gone. Niniane and the women stood in the courtyard and looked forlornly at the gate through which they had ridden. Then Niniane straightened her shoulders. She had told Ceawlin she would manage on her own, and so she would. She turned to Meghan and said briskly, “With the men gone, we will have to do all the work for the livestock and the farms ourselves. We will have enough to keep us busy until they return, that is certain. Come now”—her voice sharpened to catch the attention of the rest of the women—“into the house. There are things to be done.”

Ceawlin took his men to a point eight miles south of Calleva where he knew there was a British farmhouse half a mile to the west of the Roman road. The British farmer was terrified when a thundering wing of fifty horsemen came riding into his yard, but Ceawlin had Gereint talk to him and soon the Saxons were feeding and watering their horses and waiting for the scouts Ceawlin had posted to return with news of Edric’s approach.

It was growing late as Ceawlin and Sigurd stood together at the edge of the farmyard and looked toward the road. “There is a perfect place to make camp a mile south of here,” Ceawlin said. “I am hoping that is what Edric will do. Then, when they are all sleeping, we will make our move.”

The scouts returned within the hour to say that Edric was doing exactly as Ceawlin had hoped. The thanes ate the bread and cheese they had brought in their saddlebags. Then there was nothing to do save wait.

The day waned. Great piled banners of blood-red light stretched across the sky and dyed the clouds. Then came the dark.

The thanes waited, sleepless, for the word to be given. Ceawlin had told them earlier exactly what they were to do: “Ride down on that ‘ camp like warriors out of hell. Use your javelins and get as many men as you can.
Do not stop for anything. I
want no hand-to-hand combat. We are in and out as fast as possible, and we kill as many as we can with javelins alone. I cannot afford to lose a single man of you. Is that clear?”

When they assured him it was, he went on: “We will come up on the camp from the south, go through it to the north, and keep on going up the Roman road. We don’t stop until we reach Calleva.”

“Where do we go after Calleva, Prince?” It was Ine, Cutha’s thane, speaking. “Edric will follow us, that is for certain.”

“I want him to follow us. After Calleva we head for the Aildon hills, Ine. To the Badon pass.”

“The Badon pass?” Ine frowned. “Isn’t that where Arthur … ?”

“Yes.” Ceawlin’s silver brows rose. “I have been there since coming to Bryn Atha, and I promise you a few dozen men can easily hold that pass against a full war band. That is where we go and that is where I want Edric to follow.”

It was after midnight when Ceawlin and his men moved out. The British farmer knew a way through the forest that would bring them up to the road south of Edric, and Gereint persuaded him to guide them. They went single-file, leading their horses, as the path was narrow and overgrown and they did not want to hit their heads on the overhanging branches of trees.

Ceawlin went first, directly after the guide. It was very dark in the forest and only his excellent night vision allowed him to keep the figure of the farmer in his sight. It was easier for the men behind him, who had the larger bulk of a horse to follow. After what seemed to him a very long time, but what the clock in his head told him was but half an hour, he saw the moonlight shining up ahead. At last the long tree-tunnel was coming to an end.

The road looked almost bright after the blackness of the tree-canopied forest. Ceawlin mounted Bayvard and kept the horse at a halt as he waited for the rest of his men to reach the road. No one spoke. They were all well aware that sound carried clearly on the night air and they were but a quarter of a mile from Edric’s camp. They could see the dying campfires clearly from where they were gathering. The sound of the horses’ hooves on the gravel of the road seemed unnaturally loud to Ceawlin’s sensitive ears, but there was no alarm shouted from the camp up ahead.

Finally the last of his men had reached the road. They lined up as previously instructed, six abreast, eight lines deep. Ceawlin was holding a javelin in his right hand when he raised his arm. There was a moment of intense silence; even the horses seemed to stand frozen in stillness. Then he brought his arm down and the wing of horsemen began to gallop up the road.

They were on Edric’s camp in less than a minute. Ceawlin swerved off the gravel road and rode directly for the rows of thanes sleeping on the grass around the campfires. His men came thundering behind him.

He saw a face in the light of the fire, recognized a thane from the king’s hall standing and beginning to raise his sword. Ceawlin’s javelin got him in the center of his chest. Ceawlin galloped his horse over the bodies on the ground and grabbed the other javelin he had stuck through his belt. He got another thane in the back as the man turned to run from the murderous hooves bearing down on him. Then Ceawlin was through the camp and turning back to the road. He turned his head to see who was beside and behind him. The wing was still intact. The gravel of the road was under Bayvard’s feet and Ceawlin settled down to ride.

They rode through to Calleva, where they stopped to count heads. They had not lost a man.

Ceawlin had stopped only once before Calleva, to post a man on the road three miles south of the city with instructions to wait until he saw Edric’s war band before he rode to Calleva to sound the warning.

The city gates were open, as the inhabitants had no idea that there were Saxons in the vicinity. Ceawlin rode in and quartered his men and horses in the old forum. He then commandeered hay for the horses and food for the men from the townspeople, who gave slightly less grudgingly when they saw that Britons were among the Saxon invaders. After they had eaten, Ceawlin had each man fill his saddlebag with as much food as he could carry. Then they all settled down for a few hours’ sleep.

It was an hour after dawn when Octa came galloping into Calleva with the news that Edric was coming. Ceawlin woke his men and they started northeast, toward the hills.

Ceawlin knew it was a risk to pass so close to Bryn Atha. But he had too few men to do aught else but hide in the hills and try to draw Edric after him. He was counting on Edric being too anxious to catch him for the queen’s husband to think it worth his while to make a stop at the villa. And if he did … if he did, Niniane was smart enough to get herself and the baby away.

Ceawlin did not travel too swiftly. He wanted Edric to feel he was within reach of the prince so he would not be tempted to give up the pursuit. Once or twice they spied several of Edric’s horsemen a mile or so behind them. Edric was scouting his quarry.

One advantage Ceawlin had over Edric was that Ceawlin numbered among his band men who knew the country. The West Saxons had only once been this far north, the time they had beat the British at Beranbyrg. The terrain was largely unfamiliar to them.

They did not realize they were being led toward the Badon pass.

It was very late in the afternoon when Ceawlin’s men reached the cleft in the hills that was known to the Britons as the Badon pass. This was a five-mile-long ravine between the two highest mountains in the Aildon hills, Mount Badon and Mount Dall. The Roman road from Venta to Corinium ran farther to the west, where the hills were low. Here the heights on either side of the pass were very steep, the ground rocky and uneven, the width narrow. It was in this pass less than a hundred years before that Arthur had buried an entire generation of Saxon warriors. Now the leader of a new Saxon generation, helped by British allies, was using the pass again.

Horses were useless in the terrain of the Badon pass and Ceawlin had half his men lead two horses apiece straight through the pass to the other end, where they were picketed and left with three men to watch them. The rest of the men trudged the five miles back to where they had left their fellows; then everyone sat down to eat the bread and cheese that was all they were carrying. Ceawlin was certain the thanes from Winchester would not make the pass this day; they were on foot and moving through unfamiliar territory. Nevertheless he did not wait until morning but posted his men on the heights of Mount Badon and Mount Dall for the night with instructions that they were to remain there until Edric appeared.

Gereint was ecstatic. He had been weaned on stories of the Battle of Badon, and here he was, on the very same mountain, following the very same strategy as the greatest hero of his race.

In fact, the strategy was not the same. Ceawlin had little hope of luring Edric into the pass. He did not have the element of surprise Arthur had had. Ceawlin’s hopes were to keep Edric tied down at the mouth of the pass while the prince pursued some further strategy of his own.

The sun rose on a beautiful, clear blue day. The early-morning air was chill, but Gereint huddled behind the rock that was to protect him from enemy arrows and scarcely noticed the cold. Wait until his father heard what he had done! The morning dragged on interminably as he trained his eyes to the east, searching for the enemy. Ceawlin was posted on the heights directly across from him. You couldn’t miss Ceawlin, Gereint thought. There was not another head like his in all of Britain.

Finally, in the distance, he saw the first lines of the marching war band. Edric had come.

Edric had known for the last two hours where it was that Ceawlin was leading him; he had sent out scouts to find a local farmer to question. When he heard the words “Badon pass” he had recognized them immediately. He had heard, of course, of the Battle of Badon, knew it had been a decisive victory for Arthur against his own people. But of the particulars he knew little. It was not the Saxon way to dwell on their defeats. So as he rode along in front of his marching men, Edric remained optimistic about finishing with Ceawlin and returning to Winchester by summer.

Then he reached the pass.

He saw the men stationed on the hills, bows at the ready. They disappeared quickly behind the scrub and the rocks that were serving as their cover, but not quickly enough to avoid being sighted. He saw the narrow ravine that cut between those steep, chalky hills.

It would be suicide to try to enter that pass. His men would have no cover from the bowmen on the heights above them. Nor would it be possible to send men out over the mountains to try to find the hidden archers. They would be shot down almost as quickly as if they were on the floor of the pass. Edric had had enough of being a sitting target for Ceawlin. He had lost twenty-five men back on the Calleva road.

“We will wait them out,” Edric said grimly to the eorls. “They have only the food they are carrying. They are trapped in those mountains. They will have to come out sometime, and we will be waiting.”

“Where does the pass lead?” one of the eorls, Agilbert, asked. “Might they not go through to the other side?”

“The British farmer said it leads nowhere—only deeper into the hills. If they choose that way, they will have rendered themselves useless. If Ceawlin wants to be the king of a pile of barren hills, he is welcome to them. But I do not think that is what he wants. He wants Winchester. He will come out. He will have to come out.”

Edric made camp on the gentle slope near the front of the pass, out of the range of Ceawlin’s bowmen. Occasionally an arrow came down from the heights as one of the Winchester thanes ventured within range. No one was hit. Ceawlin’s men finally resorted to shouted taunts.

“They are desperate to get us to enter the pass,” said Edric with satisfaction. “Good.”

Night fell and the Winchester war band posted sentries all around the camp. Edric was taking no chances of being surprised again. The night passed quietly. When the sun rose in the morning, the bowmen on the slopes of the mountains were gone.

“They have gone deeper into the hills,” Edric said. But he was uneasy. It was not like Ceawlin to give up so easily. “Find me someone from this area,” he ordered. “I want to know exactly what is on the far side of that pass.”

It was noon before he found out. The pass led to the old Roman road that went from Corinium to Calleva. Ceawlin had never had any intention of luring Edric into the pass. He had merely fooled him into remaining in the hills for the night while he and his horsemen galloped back to Calleva. And from Calleva the road to Winchester lay wide open before him.

Edric grimly turned his men and retraced his steps east, out of the hills. They did not pause to eat or to sleep, but marched on through the night. When they reached Calleva it was to find that Ceawlin had been through the previous day and had taken the road south. The tired Winchester war band set out in pursuit.