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§ XI

Delays lengthened the ride for Arthur,
Gwenhwyfar and the men from Caer Cadan to Amlawdd’s fortress. The wind had
shifted round from the north-east and the clouds
shed their load
in a downpour that sent the puddles and muddied ruts
hissing
and boiling. The men tightened their
cloaks around their
necks, and the horses, with ears flattened, tried to
turn their rumps into the needle-pointed, stinging rain. Already agitated,
a horse shied violently as a nesting bird took
sudden flight from
beneath its hooves. It was one of those accidents
that are
unexpected and unavoidable. The
horse squealed, ducked
sharply to the left, his head dropping, back
humping and the rider tumbled across his shoulder, landing awkwardly.

They stopped to assess the damage, standing
drearily in the
pouring rain, found a broken
collar-bone. The Decurion
fashioned a
sling, one man was detached from the ranks to
escort the injured man
back to the Caer. Delay. The ground underfoot, already well marshy, sucked and
squelched beneath hooves. They could travel only at a walk, any faster and the
horses would flounder. More delay.

Midday. The
light was little more than that of early evening.
It was growing colder, the rain falling in a steady sheet, the horses’
coats steaming. The view ahead was obscured by the
slush of rain and the binding mist that seethed and curled from the flood
levels
up to join the low, menacing
cloud. Then, an hour’s ride west of
Yns
Witrin, they found the bridge down. The river had risen four hand-spans and was
gushing in a mass of white foam through the
fallen, twisted timbers,
swept aside by the raging current.

Arthur halted, sat
morosely regarding the jagged ends of wood
that
gaped like wolfs fangs above the fast flow of the river. He
sniffed dripping rain from his nose, turned in
the saddle, eyed a
squalid settlement clinging miserably to the higher
ground a
quarter of a mile off. A haphazard
clutter of decrepit wattle huts
squatted
between scrubby rectangular fields divided by hawthorn
hedges, the plots resembling the staggered pattern
of a mortared
brick-built wall. The hawthorn, once cut and twisted into
an
efficient barrier for keeping stock in or
out, was escaping from its
enforced lacing, its seedlings growing up
like boar’s bristles, unchecked, unkempt. The outer fields were untended. Come
harvest, thistles would choke what little corn
grew. A despondent place for a pathetic community of people who no longer cared.

A man nursing an axe, stood watching the men
ride up from the river. Ragged sacking covered his head against the rain, crude
leggings and grass-stuffed boots adorned his legs. His
beard was unkempt, his hair unshorn, fleas and lice shuffled and
hopped
about his clothing and unwashed body. As Arthur approached, he waited, holding
that great, sharp-honed axe across his folded arms, the blade bright,
glistening among the dark rattle of rain.

The dwellings, appearing decayed from the
kindness of distance, turned out to be worse than that. Two were burnt-out
remains, gutted, with only a few pathetic reminders
to show
that some building had once stood there. Another had only its
front wall standing, nothing else, a fourth, no
roof. Among it
all lay the black,
heat-twisted remains of bodies. Women,
young children, a cow, two goats,
and even a skinny, mange-furred dog. Beneath the shelter of a partially
collapsed wall of the fifth a bedraggled woman squatted with three round-eyed
children, huddling cold, wet, hungry and miserable.

‘When, how, did this happen?’ Arthur asked,
appalled, as he approached and reined in. He had seen squalor, seen the ruin
left behind an invading army or victorious rout. But this? The Summer Land was
peaceful, relatively prosperous.

The man took his time to
answer. He looked directly at
Arthur, assessing him,
chewed on toothless gums, spat. ‘Day afore yesterday.’ The Decurion beside the
Pendragon asked, ‘When did the bridge go?’ The man studied him and glanced
almost with a sneer at Gwenhwyfar, some paces behind. He spat again into the
ankle-deep mud. ‘Don’t rightly know, nor care.’
The Decurion leant forward in his saddle, impatient. He
spoke
loudly, slowly, as if talking to an idiot moon-calf. ‘Has a lone rider passed
this way during the night?’

‘Don’t know that either.’

‘Imbecile! Do you know anything?’
Arthur motioned for his officer to be silent,
brought his right
leg over his horse’s
withers, casually hooked over one of the two
front saddle horns.

He looked around at the
overgrown hedges, a gate-less gap in
the wall. The place
had been raided and burnt, but had there been anything worth the raiding? He
indicated the poorly kept walls. ‘Your village is undefended.’
Not much worth defending.’ The man was becoming
irritating.

Arthur smiled, enforcing
good nature, slid from his horse, his
feet sinking in the ooze. ‘Is it worth defending them?’ He
gestured at the children, the dead.

‘What chance did we have against armed men?’

‘Where are the rest of your menfolk?’ The man
scratched behind his left earlobe, eventually tossed his head at a piled heap
of timber and rubbish that had been
burnt. ‘They
killed ‘em. Tied ‘em up, burnt ‘em.’ Arthur
decided against pursuing
further questions. The answers were too sickening.

‘
You
are alive,’ the Decurion observed with a snarl. The man
did not rise to the bait, stared a moment, shrugged, spat,
answered,
‘I were not ‘ere.’
Again, Arthur waved his officer quiet. They had not the
time
to stand bickering. ‘Where do folk cross the river when
the
bridge
is down?’ Drawling, insolent, ‘Wouldn’t know. Bridge has never been down afore.’
Gwenhwyfar too, had dismounted. While the men
talked
she made her way to the woman. She squatted before her,
heedless of the mud caking her boots, noted the
sunken, hollow
eyes that had no more tears left to be cried, realised
the filthy
bundle in the woman’s arms was a
child. The thing whimpered,
its tiny face turning outward, its face
flushed scarlet.

‘Is the child ill?’ Gwenhwyfar asked softly,
smiling, the question intended as friendly conversation, the answer was
obvious. The mother drew away, wide-eyed, frightened, a half-scream on her
lips, the child clutched tighter in her arms.

Sudden movement behind!
Arthur screamed a warning,
leapt
forward, his sword coming as he moved into his hand, but
he
was too slow! The axe, that bright-honed axe head, was
coming down, falling towards Gwenhwyfar as the peasant split
the air with the full force of his arms and
shoulders. She ducked,
rolled aside
as Arthur lunged, both their breaths hissing with
the need for instant
motion. The axe thudded into the sludge where a hair’s breadth before,
Gwenhwyfar had squatted.

Arthur’s sword was at the man’s throat,
pricking against the
skin. Breathing heavily,
nostrils flared and anger great, he
snarled, ‘Is this how you welcome travellers?’
He brought the sword up, holding it two-handed, intending to bring it down
through the man’s skull, but stopped, the blade
raised, as,
fearless, the peasant
said, ‘This is how your kind treat the poor.’
There was no fear, only
scorn and contempt.

Although her heart beat
wildly, Gwenhwyfar tried to give
the
impression of unconcern, as if having an axe almost
splitting
your skull in two was an everyday occurrence. She
laughed ironically to herself. As, it seemed, these past two days,
it
surely was! ‘Leave it, Arthur,’ she said, ‘these people have suffered enough.’
She pulled herself from the mud, crouched again before the woman. ‘Can I help?’
The man bent to retrieve his axe, but Arthur’s sword crashed between him and
the weapon. ‘My wife is generous, I am not. Another movement and 1 will have
your arm off.’
The man returned Arthur’s
fierce glare. ‘Your kind have
done enough here. We need nothing, save
for you to be gone and leave us alone.’
Arthur
tipped his head to one side, curiosity overcoming
anger, lowered his
sword but did not sheath it. ‘Our kind?’

‘
Aye,’ the
man stared directly at him, ‘your kind.’ His
clenched knuckles were
white, jaw tense. ‘Your kind. Those
who find
pleasure in killing the innocent. Your kind, who
destroy our homes, burn and trample our meagre crops, steal or
slaughter
our stock.’ His enraged eyes slid to the young mother
cradling the child. ‘Rape and butcher our womenfolk.’ None
too
gently, he prodded Arthur’s chest with a grubby finger.
‘There’s one law for your kind, another for mine. You take what
you
please, do as you please. We accept that or die.’

‘That is not my law,’ Arthur answered,
sliding his sword into its scabbard.

‘
That’s
how it is.’

‘Then it should
not be.’

‘
What should be and what is
are differing matters, my Lord
Pendragon.’
The man bent again, picked up his axe. Arthur
made no attempt to stop
him.

The Decurion, standing behind Arthur, his own
sword still drawn, snorted disdain. He was cold and wet, wanted to leave
this depressing place, wanted to find that young
idiot Ider,
string him up as punishment against desertion and go home. ‘Ah,
so you know who we are!’ Drily he added, ‘I wondered.’
The villager swung to face him. ‘I know well who you are! I
can
see with my eyes. I recognise the Dragon.’ He spat
contemptuously at the banner. ‘The Pendragon, defender of
the land? Don’t make me laugh! Where were you on
the
morning before last? Where were you when they came to burn and
steal, kill and rape?’

‘Who?’ Gwenhwyfar asked the young mother. ‘Who
came? Sea-raiders?’ She glanced at Arthur, surely not this far inland?
Arthur shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, as
much at a loss
as she was.

The mother – she could be
no more than ten and five
summers – was rocking
her baby, bringing what little comfort she could to the miserable child. She
spoke in a timid whisper. ‘Amlawdd’s people.’

‘
And you
call them my kind?’ Arthur roared, his fists
bunching, teeth grating. ‘I
assure you, my friend, the low-born whore’s son who dared do such as this is
not of my kind.’ Gwenhwyfar held her arms out for the baby, took it gently, the
tiny thing was burning with fever. She stood, rocking the child as the mother
had done, said, ‘We are here to revenge
ourselves
on Amlawdd for wrongs his son has done to us. He is to pay for the death of men
of the Artoriani. So too shall he pay
for that which has been done here.’
The man sneered at her, snorting disbelief.
‘Today Amlawdd
shall grovel before you, tomorrow his men shall come
raiding again. He means to take for himself a kingdom.’ He looked pointedly at
Arthur. ‘Your kingdom.’ Arthur’s bland expression was his familiar, implacable,
grim
squint, right eye half shut, left
eyebrow raised. He had his spies,
his
people, and no word had come to him of this. He spoke now
with a tone as
hard as iron. ‘No one takes from me.’
Gwenhwyfar
handed the baby back to his mother. There was
nothing she could do, it
was clearly dying. ‘Give him love. He needs no more in this life.’

‘I am the only man here now.’ The peasant
spoke again, his
bluster and anger giving
ground to the hopelessness of it all. He
swept a hand at the remains of
the settlement. ‘When they
attacked, I was
not here, I had taken my daughter to wed with a
good man.’ He tossed his
head south, wiped a dirt-encrusted
hand
under his nose. ‘Had I not taken her that day ...’ He left
the thoughts
unspoken.

‘We will be coming back,’ Gwenhwyfar said to
him, to the
woman. ‘We will return with
your stolen cattle and some of our
men will stay to help you rebuild.’
The Decurion muttered something disparaging,
Gwenhwyfar
was about to snap a curt reprimand, but Arthur cut in. ‘These poor wretches are
as much my responsibility as
the Artoriani.
Who can they trust if their King turns his back
on them?’ Arthur grasped
the peasant’s hand between his own, held it a
moment
with genuine friendship. ‘My Lady Gwenhwyfar
speaks true. It shall be.’
They rode away into the rain, Gwenhwyfar looking
back
once at the desolate place. Too
often she took warmth, food
and security for granted. And her husband’s
protective sword. Others, too many others, had not that privilege.