Warriors of Camlann (33 page)

‘King Arturus has asked me to lead the bravest of you against your former comrades,' she began. Her voice was not loud and scarcely carried beyond the first rank.

‘Speak up young 'un – we can't hear at the back.' The voice, speaking heavily accented soldier's Latin, was mocking, and Ursula's heart sank.

‘You will not remember me,' she began again, more loudly, ‘but I fought alongside your fathers, led them in the famous charge at Baddon Hill.'

There was a snort of derision from somewhere and Ursula fought to keep her temper under control.

‘That was Arturus – everyone knows that!' someone called out. Then a voice spoke from the front rank – one of the younger men.

‘No, it wasn't. It was a woman, my ma told me!'

‘Shut up, Caradoc – your ma tell you where babies come from yet?'

There was more laughter but it was not unfriendly and Caradoc ignored it. He was a strong-looking youth and addressed his mockers in a clear, ringing voice.

‘You all heard of my father, Cynfach, who led us at Baddon, well, he rode with the Lady Ursa. I have told
the story before – it was the Lady who led the charge wearing Arturus's face-mask!'

Ursula took her opportunity. She marched towards the youth and dragged him forward to face the troops. She spoke clearly as Caradoc had done, allowing each word to echo and die before continuing.

‘This man had a father to be proud of. Cynfach was my friend. Cynfach saved my life too, on Baddon field when the charge was over and the worst of the killing began. I carried this mask then and I carry it now.' She waved Arturus's golden mask before them.

‘Baddon was tough, but the task I ask of you now is tougher and I need to know if you are worthy heirs of your fathers.'

The silence of the assembled men had deepened as she spoke. She had their attention at last. Then the veteran she had spotted earlier pushed forward to the front and as he approached she recognised him as one of Cynfach's corps.

‘Lady Ursa, I have not forgotten.' He was a big man, heavily muscled and scarred. His voice was as powerful as his frame. ‘I have not forgotten those that fell that day and those who have fallen since and I have never forgotten you. I do not know what magic has preserved you unchanged through these long years which have seen my strength fade but, by all the soldier's gods, it is good to see you again.'

‘Rhys! You've gained a few pounds, but I do not believe your arm is any the weaker for it.' Ursula was relieved that her voice sounded firm as she grasped his arm.

Rhys spoke to the assembled men.

‘Do not be misled by this Lady's beauty, by her youth or, begging your pardon my Lady, the slenderness of her frame, for this is the Lady Ursa, the she-bear of Baddon Hill, and I promise you – you will never see a better fighter!'

There was an instant's silence and then the commander of the Cataphracts stepped forward. He was a handsome man in a blue-grey surcoat of much-mended horn scale. He moved with the easy confidence of command and his voice carried effortlessly in the still cool morning.

‘I don't doubt your sincerity, Rhys, but we need more than that. If you are to lead us, Lady, why has Arturus not sent me orders?'

Ursula could not answer that.

‘Perhaps he hoped that you would gladly follow a hero,' she said softly, ‘or perhaps he wished me to prove myself to you – again.' She sighed. ‘There is little time, so let's get it over with. I will fight any two of you if need be, to establish that I'm fit to lead. Who wants to test my mettle?'

She removed her armour so that she stood in just her
tunic, bare-headed and shieldless, her sword in her hand.

Rhys grinned at her and the commander nodded his assent.

‘I am Vitus and I will fight you, Lady.' He said courteously.

‘Anyone else?' Ursula knew by the men's reaction that Vitus was their best. She was not afraid, indeed her earlier nervousness had disappeared. She wanted this.

She did not take long. He was a good swordsman but she had fought the best and she was angry, not wild and out of control angry, but coldly furious that Arturus had deliberately placed her in this situation again, hours before he expected her to die for him and his doomed cause. Vitus could not parry the blows she rained on him fast enough, she was too quick and too strong. She came at him more fiercely than he anticipated, attacking constantly so that he was unable to think of anything but his own defence. He stumbled and she stopped, reining in her temper before she injured him.

‘Anyone else?' Ursula repeated her earlier question. There was silence. She helped Vitus to his feet – he had overbalanced and lay, panting on the ground.

‘Right! I am the Lady Ursa, veteran of Baddon Hill, and I will lead you well if you will follow me.' No one breathed and she knew that she did not have them yet. She had more to prove. She had made a speech before,
in Macsen's Hall on the brink of another battle, the Battle of Craigwen. She had found the right words then and she needed to find them again. She took a deep breath and began. She spoke more quietly, but the men listened, strained to hear as she began.

‘I know that you are loyal men. I know how it must pain you to lose brothers in arms and I'm sure brothers in blood too, but they are gone, lost to you. They have allied with our enemies. They have allied with the Aenglisc and we have to fight them. We have to fight them, those who were your brothers, because if we don't the Aenglisc will sweep us away. Once, long ago, before Baddon, I was there when the Aenglisc burned down a village, cut down those that ran to escape and killed a young girl for sport. King Arturus is all that stands between us and that. We have to fight to keep Arturus's dream of Britannia, our Island of the Mighty, alive. Arturus is Roman and Combrogi both, he carried the hope of all of us at Baddon and after twenty years of peace he carries it still. We walk into an ambush but we can win, must win. We will have victory if you have the heart and guts for a tough fight, more than that, a tough fight against fellow Cataphracts who have betrayed us all.'

She knew when they cheered that she had won them. All of them volunteered to follow her up the steep slope of the nearest hill and down again the other side, follow
her through whatever mayhem and carnage lay between. Inwardly, she marvelled at their courage. She did not believe many of them would survive the day.

She allowed Vitus to choose the sixty lightest and strongest for the task ahead and rode with him, at the head of the Sarmatian column, towards Camlann.

When the largest of the three hills came into view Ursula peeled away from the main force, Dan rode over to her side. Her face-mask was up and she looked worried.

‘These men don't know me, Dan – they didn't even know I'd led the charge at Baddon. Arturus could have made it easier.'

‘Maybe he made it hard on purpose.'

Ursula pulled a face. Dan could feel her fear and her excitement. She was flooded with nervous energy. He wanted to hold her, but she was fully equipped with kontos, sword and bow. The hillside looked too steep for her to climb. There were too many ways she could be killed. There was so much he wanted to say and yet this was not the time to say any of it.

‘Good Luck!'

Ursula nodded, gave him a tight, terse smile and swung her mount away to join her men. Dan could sense their fear, too, and the beginnings of that strange adoration Ursula's warrior-woman persona tended to engender. He almost went with her at that moment, to
try to keep her safe, but he did not want to fight again and that determination could make him a liability. He returned to the main body of Arturus's force as the High King was instructing his command group, and sought out Bryn and Braveheart.

‘Are you going with the High King?'

Bryn shook his head. ‘I will not fight my former Lord if I can avoid it and anyway, you have forgotten, Dan, my role is with you.'

‘But you think me a coward, for not fighting.'

‘I never said that.'

‘I knew you felt it.'

‘I was a boy then.'

Dan nodded. ‘Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could sing it all into oblivion, make it all melt away like Rhonwen's illusion at Baddon?'

Bryn grinned and the moment of awkwardness was over.

‘It wouldn't work now – my voice broke some years back!'

They rode together towards Taliesin and Frontalis's cart. Brother Frontalis was with Arturus's confessor, blessing the Christian troops.

‘What happens now?' Dan asked Taliesin.

‘Bedewyr and the infantry will advance and form their wall when Ursula reaches the top of the hill.'

‘And we'll know she's done that when …?'

‘When you tell us, my friend.'

Dan was not at all sure that he wanted to watch Ursula risk herself again. He was beginning to understand those mothers who looked away when their children did anything dangerous. He propped himself up against the cart and let his thoughts fly. He saw Ursula at once using the kontos like a walking stick and leading her reluctant horse. Her troops had spread out around her in a line rather than a column so that one man's lost footing need not signal a major disaster. The ease with which Ursula climbed under the weight of her mail and helmet served to encourage the men. They were not going to be out-climbed by a mere girl. All the horses also appeared to be coping with the sharp incline. They were strong beasts but relatively lightly built, unlike the heavy, mediaeval war horses Dan had seen in pictures. It took perhaps an hour for all the men to reach the summit. Dan saw Ursula signal with a wave of her sword for her men to mount up. He saw her adjust Arturus's cherubic, golden, face-mask. He shivered mentally as he saw the effect as her men fitted their own masks. Sixty human fighters were at once turned into sixty unearthly creatures, with bland, impassive, metal faces that did not register pain or fear. They stood proud, like inhuman centaur gods. They were outlined against the sky and visible to their enemies if not their allies. These sixty Cataphracts, so improbably positioned,
were Arturus's message to Medraut. Arturus was still High King, still in the game. It was not over yet.

Dan allowed his consciousness to sink back into his body and opened his eyes.

‘Send the infantry!'

One of the standard bearers immediately blew the advance and Arturus's three hundred men marched forward the short distance to the valley. On a second signal the front row (and each of the men in the end column and the rear line) dropped to their knees and rested their oval shields on the ground. They pointed their spears forward at hip height, like the spines of some armoured, mythical beast. The horn blew again and the second row of infantry rested their shields on the shields of their comrades to form a wall as tall as a standing man. They held their spears at shoulder height. This second shield wall appeared on all four sides of the rectangular formation. It was a bizarre sight. A Roman tactic performed by the Combrogi. Each man had his own distinctive war gear. Some had mail shirts, some the battered remnants of antique Roman scale armour. Some wore the protection of boiled, hardened leather, others thickly padded woollen garments. Each man bore a shield painted with a different design, with their war gods or saints, with lucky symbols or sacred words, in every colour that their ingenuity could produce. They looked as different from each other as they did from
their Aenglisc enemies but they moved as one.

It was only when Arturus's battle horn sounded that Gwynefa noticed her danger.

Ursula heard the battle horn – it was her signal. Her legs ached from the climb and her tunic stuck to her, damp and itchy with sweat. The dappled, diffused light made the job of spotting the enemy harder, but the screaming of horses and cursing of armoured men told her all that she needed to know. Gwynefa had seen them and begun to recognise her peril and was ordering her men to face Ursula's own force. She did not quite believe that Gwynefa would be so foolish. She lifted her mask briefly to grin confidently at the men nearest to her, Rhys and Caradoc. She had not wanted to bring either of them. She did not want their deaths on her conscience, but Vitus had chosen and was himself at the rear of his chosen men. She lowered her mask and patted the lathered neck of her mount. None of the horses in her troop wore armour now but, like the men, had to trust to speed, skill and the grace of God to stay alive. Ursula sat straighter in the saddle and raised her sword high in her own signal to advance.

Without willing it, Dan found himself flying above Ursula again, drawn by his need to know that she was safe. He heard Gwynefa's shrieked orders. She attempted to send half her force up the hill to face Ursula's smaller force. It was a naïve mistake. Gwynefa's
Cataphracts were too tightly packed to benefit from the limited cover of the trees, each man carried a kontos some two metres long, each horse required more space than was available to turn round and face up hill. There was chaos as the well-trained Sarmatians struggled to obey orders that were almost impossible to follow. Men and weapons became entangled with tree branches and each other. For those few who managed the manoeuvre, the prospects were scarcely any better. Gwynefa's horses were armoured and trying to charge up hill, while Ursula's, though unprotected, had the advantage of the downward slope, the element of surprise, and a commander who had fought on horseback before. Dan saw Ursula at the moment she raised her sword again in the signal to charge. He saw her ride forward, her golden face lending her a terrible calm assurance. She held her kontos like a lance, to impale anyone who got in her way. There were too many terrified men and horses ahead of her. Dan dreaded the impact, the moment when spear pierced flesh and all the pain and animal terror began. Gwynefa's forces panicked. They had not had time to fasten their own masks, and fear was evident in their faces. Half were facing downhill and they rode, without any signal from Gwynefa, to escape the gold-faced goddess who led their former comrades like an avenging angel. Gwynefa's strategic value to Arturus's enemy died at that point. She had lost control of her
men, and her men were doomed. Dan did not want to watch as Ursula's men dispatched their former comrades. He did not want to hear the thud as living men, unhorsed, fell onto the rucked ground. He did not want to hear the fear and horror in their primal cries as they were trampled under foot. He did not want to hear the ring of metal against metal, weapon against weapon, and worse, the sound of the cracking and splintering of bone, the ending of lives. When he had been a berserker he had never been aware of anything but his own bloody purpose – to watch a battle was a terrible thing and to feel men die was worse.