Pendragon 02 Pendragon Banner (35 page)

Winter stalked over the
hills, and word came that many days’
march to the north, Lot was again gathering men to his thistle banner.

December 462

§ XLI

Gwenhwyfar, her head resting on her propping
hand, ran a finger down the length of the scar that snaked from Arthur’s collar
bone to wrist. In places the angry redness was paling to
white, but the viciousness of the wound still
knotted her
stomach whenever she
looked at it. The memory of when he had
lain saturated with his own sweat and tossing in fever was not yet
fully
thrust aside; that awful night when the Medical Optio had
stood shaking his head, convinced that the arm
would have to be
amputated. If
Gwenhwyfar had not been there to protest, to beg
for just twenty-four
more hours ... She shuddered.

‘
Does it
still pain you?’ she asked, retracing the disfigurement
a second time.

‘
Occasionally.
A soldier learns to put up with the memory of old wounds.’ Arthur turned his
head on the pillow and smiled at
her.
‘Though there are certain places where a man dreads a
sword thrust more
than any other.’ Gwenhwyfar fingered another faded scar which ran beneath
the dark hairs covering his nipples and chest, ‘Your
body is not
the one I knew nine years ago.’

‘
I’ve
ridden many miles through those years, Cymraes.’ He
lay on his back, drowsing in the warm comfort that
hangs
between wakefulness and sleep,
his right arm curled beneath his
head.
Outside, the wind was roaring, buffeting against the
timber and
wattle-daubing, swirling the first fall of light snow;
its jagged breath finding a way beneath the wooden door,
making
the flames of the hearth-fire contort and leap.

A while ago, they had
made love, her passion as fierce as his,
their
enjoyment leaving them breathless and damp with sweat. The touch of her fingers
exploring the scars on his chest and arms was arousing him again. He guided her
hand beneath the
fur bed-coverings, placed
it over a raised scar on his inner thigh.
‘Remember this one?’

‘I remember! Those weeks while you recovered
at your mother’s villa were happy ones. We were young and we were
lovers; nothing stood between us, not even
Winifred’s hot
breath on our necks – and she was then your taken wife.’
She
paused, moved her hand intimately
higher. ‘I should have
realised then, shouldn’t I?’
He regarded her with a questioning
frown. ‘Realised what?’

‘
That I am a fool to love you.’ She stroked the
fine, soft hairs
of his belly, letting her fingers wander lower.

Arthur’s breath caught,
his stomach knotting with the thrill
of desire, responded
to her kiss as she leant over him, covering his mouth with hers. He slid his
hands up her back, delighting in the smooth silk of her warm skin.

‘
A fool
eh?’ he murmured as he twined his hand in the
thickness of her copper-gold hair, holding her to him. ‘That you
might
be, but you are also the most beautiful, and I love you.’ Their love-making was
softer this time, not so impetuous, the giving and receiving of intimate loving.

A while after, Gwenhwyfar lay watching the
dim shadows
skittering across the walls.
Into the semi-darkness of their
small, private chamber said, ‘Arthur?’

‘Mmm?’ He was almost asleep.

‘What will you do when you eventually capture
Morgause?’ His eyes snapped open but he remained still. What would he do? Have
her flogged, throw her to the men for their pleasure –
take her himself? Throw her to drown in the peat bogs, bury her
alive ... he had ideas of a hundred and more cruel
and
humiliating ways to avenge his childhood. ‘Hang her,’ he said
simply. And he shut his eyes and went to sleep
feeling for once,
that he had spoken
the truth. She was not worth anything
more.
To be hung like a common criminal was enough, he’d not
waste time and
energy or emotion doing more.

The fire burned low and the wind continued
its buffeting of the world outside. They slept with his arm around her waist.
The snow-sprinkled night wheeled slowly through
the dark
hours, turned to meet the coming new day.

An urgent thumping on the closed door startled Arthur
awake.

‘
Mithras,
what now?’ he groaned, burrowed deeper below the bed-furs, wriggling his body
closer to his wife. He shut his eyes
tight, opened them again as the knocking persisted. Letting
his breath slide from him in a long, low moan he rolled away from Gwenhwyfar
and sat up stiffly. He yawned, rubbed his face. ‘Come!’ he bellowed, angry at
the intrusion, ‘What is it?’
Gwenhwyfar,
awake also, gathered a fur to cover her breasts,
Arthur swung his legs from the bed and strode naked across the
circular
hut towards the opening door.

Enniaun stepped inside quickly, a swirl of
wind and snow leaping from the darkness, entering with him to chase the fire-
shadows higher. He shut the door almost before he
was
through, his wolf-skin cloak was snow-spattered, his hair
wind-tossed.

He was breathless,
panting. The wind was rising outside, and
he had hurried, run, across to the Pendragon’s chamber.
‘Arthur. Lot is beyond the outer defences with a Picti
war-
hosting at his back.’

§ XLII

Enniaun had never seen
Arthur so very angry, nor had the men.

No one spoke as the
Pendragon strode across the hard ground
of
the inner yard and took the wooden steps up to the rampart walk above the
gateway two at a time. Careful not to become skylined, the Pendragon kept his
body low, hidden behind the
protection of the
timber battlements. He peered across, out
into the thick, snow-whirled darkness. Nothing, only the
dance of
snowflakes against the night.

Cei was there, beside the high, wooden wall
of the watch tower, his hand hovering nervously above his sword. ‘It is
difficult to see through this swirl of snow, my
Lord, but they are
there. They must have come in under cover of this
weather.’
Arthur glared at him, his lips and
eyes threateningly narrowed.
‘Obviously,’ he said coldly. ‘And where are
the scouts who are supposed to bring warning of just such a thing as this?’

‘Some rode in as dusk fell. They had seen
nothing.’ Cei was twisting the folds of his heavy cloak in his fingers. The
leather
straps of his helmet swung loose
around his jaw. He had ridden
many a rough ride on the crest of Arthur’s
temper, this one tonight was going to be roughest of all, for it was justified.

‘Some?’ Arthur queried in a deceptively light
tone. All the
while his furious eyes bore
into Cei’s, who looked helplessly at
Enniaun for support. It was not
forthcoming.

He cleared his throat. ‘It was assumed the
other three were sheltering from the snow.’

‘
It
was assumed the other three
were
sheltering
from
the
snow,’
Arthur
cruelly mimicked Cei’s explanation, flung his arm
towards the blackness
beyond the falling snowflakes. ‘And do you still assume that?’ Cei reddened. ‘No,
my Lord.’ He jutted his chin, defiantly challenging Arthur’s anger. Justified
himself with ‘We did not
expect Lot to attack a fort such as this – you yourself doubted he
would do so – and
especially not in this weather.’ Arthur ran his tongue over the inside of his
cheek, stared at
the haze of whiteness. Very
softly, with a menace that was
chiller than the night air, said, ‘Lot is allied with the Picti, and the Picti excel at fighting in any weather, Cei. I
assumed you knew that.’ Someone behind coughed, Arthur turned abruptly, barked
at the hovering man. ‘Well?’

‘Do I turn out and ready the men, Sir?’
Curt, Arthur nodded assent, adding, ‘With no
noise,
Decurion.’ He cut his hand through the air, emphasising the
order. ‘I want no noise. Understand? No noise,
all must seem as
normal. Keep the
night guard at its posting, and if they have not
attacked by then, sound
the third watch. We must make Lot believe that we are not aware of his coming.’
He turned back to Cei, asked caustically, ‘Do you think you could possibly
manage to see to it that the horses are saddled
and made ready quietly also? Or would that small responsibility
be
over-much for you?’ Cei took in a sharp, hissing breath at the ruthless
sarcasm,
saluted and whirled on his heel,
his hands bunched in tight fists
at his side. Say nothing, obey orders.
But by God’s grace, one day ... one day!

‘That was uncalled for Arthur,’ Enniaun said,
with calm observation. He gestured to the watch guard behind. ‘Particularly
within hearing of the men.’

‘When I want counsel on what to say or not to
say to my commanding officers I shall ask for it,’ Arthur retorted sharply.

‘That too, was uncalled for.’ Enniaun pushed
himself away
from the timbered wall against
which he had been leaning,
stood
before the Pendragon. ‘We are all taken by surprise. None
could have foreseen this. You are the brilliant
commander after
all, and even you did not.’ Arthur swung around, his
fist raised. Unafraid, Enniaun
caught the arm
as it swung back. ‘Do we quarrel atween
ourselves now then,
brother-by-law? Have we the luxury to spend time on petty squabbles?’ Arthur
sucked in his breath, slowly unclenched his fist, watching closely as the
fingers uncurled, relaxed. Then, mood changing abruptly, he slapped Enniaun’s
arm in an apologetic manner. Laughed, his voice low. ‘You are, of course,
right.’
Enniaun, too, relaxed. ‘I speak as
my mind runs, Arthur. You
are pushing
Cei too far over his limit. You know his heart is not
in this war.’

‘
Aye, he
would rather be at his wife’s hearth.’ Arthur snorted
contempt. ‘He ought to bed an army whore or two
if he so misses
the pleasures of a woman.’
He spoke tactlessly, for Enniaun flared again. ‘Most of us’, he hissed, ‘are
loyal to our wives. Someone is lucky enough to have
his wife with him.
He also has the joy of having his children here. He has no need to sit and gaze
into the fires wondering
how his sons are
growing.’ The volatile rage in him was unusual;
Enniaun was a
mild-tempered man, taking each day for how it came.

For a second time Arthur swung round to face
his brother-by-law. ‘It was you, I recall, who fetched Gwenhwyfar north. She,
who ordered our two sons to be fetched. I did not know of it. 1 lay close to
death.’

‘
You
have kept them here.’ Arthur tossed his hand high, fingers wide, ‘So you are
also bleating because I have my family with me and you do not?’

‘
I am not
foolish enough to bring cubs and a pregnant woman
into a war-zone!’

‘Brother!’ The two men spun on their heels as
Gwenhwyfar, wrapped in a thick mantle of a wolf-skin cloak, its head-hood
pulled well forward, made her way up the slippery
wooden steps.
‘When I foolishly let
out that private information in your
presence some days past, you gave
me your word that it would spread no further.’ Her anger, matched that of the
men.

Enniaun was staring at a point on the ground
near his boot, ashamed to meet his sister’s gaze. He had indeed promised to
hold his silence, the words had slipped out, unexpectedly, uncontrolled.

‘When?’ Arthur asked Gwenhwyfar curtly.

‘
I am
barely three months carrying. I was not over-certain of
my dates, that
is why I have said nothing.’
Arthur did not
believe her reason for silence, but let the
matter rest. Most certainly,
he would not have allowed her to
stay this
far north had he known. But she was here, and that was
an end of it, so
he said, ‘Fetch the boys from their beds and go back to our own chamber. Stay
there. I will issue orders for a guard.’

‘I would rather be helping with the wounded.’
Arthur opened his mouth to make some protesting retort,
swallowed it. ‘You do not usually bother to ask permission to go
against me,’ he said with a glimmer of humour. ‘Why
do so this
time?’ Gwenhwyfar laughed with him, and stepped forward to
kiss his cheek. ‘I only ask when I know you will readily agree.’ He pretended
to swipe at her backside. ‘You vixen! Aye, go then. You will be of much use to
the men.’ Then, as she began to descend the steps, ‘Gwenhwyfar.’ She paused,
looked up at him.