Shadow of the King (60 page)

strap of his war-cap. “I have no wish for killing,” he replied. Eadric the

Saxon spat on the ground. “Nor,” Bedwyr added, “have I much of a wish

to disobey orders.”

Eadric spat a second time. “And whose orders would they be? Those of the

Roman fool Ambrosius?” He let the axe-head down, let its weight swing to the

ground between his feet, his hands holding the shaft, ready to move, use it, if

he must. “It is the shame that your king was not found. The Pendragon would

never have permitted the spilling of so much innocent blood.”

“No blood has been shed,” Bedwyr countered.

Blood, no, but to the south and along the Tamesis Valley those past months,

farmsteadings had been burnt to the ground, livestock herded away, harvests

taken. The Saxon families were not killed but with no shelter, no food left

them for the winter, how long would they survive? “There are other ways to

die,” Eadric said sadly. He took one step forward. “Without this farm, I cannot

support my wife nor the bairn growing large in her belly. Without this farm

there will be nothing for her brothers when they are grown into manhood.

Without this farm.” He lifted the axe so that the gleaming head lay in the open

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 3 6 3

palm of his broad, strong hand. “I, as with the others of my kind, will have no

choice but to fight you and your kind.”

Bedwyr looked about him. This was a pleasant valley; it had seen little killing,

save for the hunt and the stalking of nature’s own endings. He had no heart

to start shedding blood now. He sighed, long and slow. Had his mind already

been made before he came here, before they had saddled up and rode from the

fortress? Made two weeks since when the first written orders had arrived? He

took up the reins, turned his horse.

“When the Pendragon left,” he said, “Britain had a prospect of peace and

trade. Ambrosius’s southern lands are still prospering, but only because he is

taking from the Anglian, the Jute, and the Saxon. He has taxed and taxed

again, is bleeding these peaceful, settled lands systematically dry. He is trying

to rid us of the Saex, he says, but he will not. If bees nest in the hollow tree at

the far end of the orchard, you leave them there, harvest their honey for your

own use. You do not poke them with a stick, make them swarm in anger. I

will not serve a man who deliberately sets women and children on the track to

starvation, even if they are Saex. I am a soldier, I am no cold murderer.” He

heeled his horse into a walk. “Peace be with you, Eadric the Saxon. I’ll not be

the one to destroy you.”

One by one, the men followed, aware of what Bedwyr, their commander,

was doing. One asked. “To where shall we go, Sir?” They could not stay at the

fortress, for now they were no longer Ambrosius’s men.

“I will ride to Geraint, take service with him.” Bedwyr shrugged. Truly he

had no plan, he was doing things as he went along. “Mayhap we will consider

resurrecting the Artoriani, place a challenge to the one who is destroying all

that the Pendragon once fought for.”

Nods and murmurs of agreement, a good suggestion. They were once, most

of them, Arthur’s men. Would willingly be so again, even if they need follow

his kindred, not the man himself.

Feet, running from behind, the youngest of Cuthwin’s sons. Bedwyr halted

his horse, the lad proffered something in his hand. A brooch, another of those

round saucer-shaped brooches with a mask pattern.

“Eadric says, to honour you and the king you once both served, he will have

no use for this.” Bedwyr took it, thanked the boy, put it safe in his waist pouch.

If only all the threats of war were so easily settled!

Sixty-Five

December 472

If they march,” Amlawdd warned in his irritating nasal whine, “we

will be knocked aside like year-old saplings before a charging boar!”

Ambrosius Aurelianus barely bothered to flick a long-suffering glance at the

man. He had been belly-aching about more or less the same thing for the

past half of an hour—had been ignored at the start of this Council, was being

ignored now. There was no point in repeating the obvious, for it served no

purpose and solved nothing. If the Saxon force, assembled at the place they

called Radingas, decided to move within the next eight and forty hours, Britain

would be lost. Would become the land of the Saxons, of the English. General

opinion, though, was agreed that this was to be their wintering place. There

would be no fighting this side of the winter snows.

The east was already fallen, out of any direct British control, all treaties,

agreements, and enforcements systematically and irrevocably destroyed, as was

the line of fortresses Ambrosius had so ambitiously planned. At least no British

men were slaughtered, but, as most had ridden south under Bedwyr’s banner

of the double-headed dragon, effectively abandoning the entire East Saxon

region north of the Tamesis, it was a fact of little consequence. They were

classified as deserters; faced, under the stricture of law, the sentence of death

by stoning.

A few had refused to ride with the traitor Bedwyr, had returned to Ambrosius.

Joined by the loyal fortresses of the Cantii border and those in the valley of the

Tamesis, the Governor of All Britain had an army to his name. But they were

not enough. Even with calling out the entire levy due to serve, the Saxons held

the advantage of three to one.

“Is there no word from Geraint?” someone asked from the rear of the crowded

Council chamber at Ambrosium. “Surely he will bring men to reinforce us?”

Someone else took up the cry. “Aye, he will not let Britain fall to the

barbarian heathen!”

S h a d o w o f t h e k i n g 3 6 5

Amlawdd was standing, legs straddled, beside Ambrosius’s chair of state. He

answered with endemic scathing. “Geraint? Fah! He shelters the traitor Bedwyr

and his scum followers! Geraint keeps his own land for his own kin, cares

nought for anyone or anything north of his borders. We are on our own and I

say we ought take up our arms and hit the Saex first! Hit them while they sleep,

burn their camp, halt them afore they make a decision to march onto the ridge

and become unstoppable!”

A few ears were beginning to cock in his direction, a few murmurs of reluc-

tant agreement, silenced as Ambrosius raised a hand so he might speak.

“Geraint has not yet answered my urgent-sent plea. For all my friend

Amlawdd may think of him, he is a man of honour. Admitted, Bedwyr resides

with him, but Geraint gives shelter to kindred, as he is by duty bound. He has

not publicly declared for rebellion. Geraint may yet come to our aid.” Did he

speak with too much of a hesitancy in his voice? With too much fervent hope?

“Aside those here at this meeting, and a handful of lords to north and west have

pledged to send men.” He shrugged dismally. “It may be enough.” He knew it

would not. The voices of the Council rose louder, one clearly heard.

“We ought never have let ourselves become so isolated! Arthur retained

petty kingdoms under his sovereignty for this one especial reason. When he

needed men, he had them.”

Someone else shouted, “Arthur deliberately kept the Saex contained and

contented. Under his rule, this bloody mess would never have raised its head

higher than his balls would have let it!”

“If only he were to come again! We would have chance of victory under a

leader such as Arthur.”

The number of voices increased, a few, Ambrosius noted, decrying that last

statement. Amlawdd one of them, of course. He had not hidden his open

pleasure at Bedwyr’s fall from grace, was personally seeing to it that these

latest, gossip-mongering rumours of Arthur were firmly quashed and ridiculed.

Arthur would come again in time of need? Fool nonsense! Childish prattle to

bolster unsteady nerves. No one spoke of Arthur when the gold chinked in

their pouches, when the grain was stored high in their barns. No one spoke of

Arthur when they had sent the Saxons running at Guoloph!

Ambrosius would not speak of him. The Pendragon was dead, gone, buried,

and mouldering. The maggots and worms had already heaved and twisted

through the bloated, decaying corpse, the stinking, rotting flesh moving as if in

life beneath the darkness of the earth. Arthur was gone!

3 6 6 H e l e n H o l l i c k

That last speaker had been his own son, Cadwy.

Slowly, drained from tiredness and an ominous hint of returning illness,

Ambrosius stood. The faces blurred, the walls moved, and he closed his eyes,

all but briefly. He must not be ill. Must not! Spoke, mustering calm and confi-

dence. “We have, then, the one option. We initiate the fight.”

Delighted, Amlawdd punched the air with his fist; men were on their feet,

beginning to herd forward, excitement overruling any former reluctance, the

roll of blood-heat pumping. Others, generals, petty chieftains, were gathering

the drape of their togas over their arms and hurrying for the outside. The

one cry loud on their lips, passing from ear to mouth, a babble of expectant

anticipation, spreading through the fortress and beyond its secure walls to the

scatter of encampments. Within the hour, men were putting a sharper edge

to their spears, swords, and daggers, were checking straps to harness, helmet,

and armour. Women were seeking their loved ones, or those who needed a

woman. One word hovering and dancing, leaping and cavorting.

War!

Sixty-Six

January 473

The Ridge Way. The Tamesis River flowed from the west a while,

before turning abruptly south, its flood-plain fed by hungry, running

tributaries dashing down from the high ground that was topped by this ancient

and majestic track. The Tamesis, a geographical and cultural boundary. Below,

to the south, British land, lifting to the heights of the soft -coloured, bright-

aired Downs; above its flow, the outriders of the forests that ran up dark and

foreboding to the fledgling Saex Kingdoms of the East and Middle Saxons.

An undisputed frontier, a great protective curved boundary that effectively

separated English from British.

Except the English had gathered to the British side and were massed near

a place of early, peaceful settlement, called in their English tongue Radingas.

The settlers, the farmers, and landholders, there and along this part of the

gentle Tamesis Valley, were of a third and fourth generation, their land given

as reward by Rome itself. More British now than Saxon, some even converted

to Christianity, they found themselves inextricably caught between the cultures

of the two. Ostracised by one, treated with contempt by the other. Old men,

young boys, unsure on which side to carry their spears. No farmer cared to

fight, not when the land needed ploughing, sowing or harvesting. No farmer

cared to leave his cattle ready to calve, his sheep ready to lamb. But then, no

farmer cared to pay taxes to a greedy and scornful overlord—and it was not yet

spring, not yet the time of nature’s urgent need for those who farmed the land.

There was little choice. The long-established settlers of the Tamesis Valley tied

the war ribbons to their spears, and made their way across their winter-sleeping

fields to the fortified encampment beside the great ridge, swelling the numbers

of discontented English. If Arthur had been king, they would have stayed at

home, mending their ploughs, watching the skies for the first signs of winter

snow, sifting the bad sowing-grain from the good. But he was not. Ambrosius

was Supreme. Ambrosius Aurelianus, a man who answered only to his Christian

3 6 8 H e l e n H o l l i c k

God, and acclaimed the ways that were Roman. The English cared nothing for

Rome and what little was left of it. Cared even less for the Christ God.

On the eve of midwinter, the British had come crying their Christian

war-shouts and hefting their war-spears along the Ridge, driving the English

outposts before them, sending the Saex scuttling for shelter behind the high,

solid-built timber palisade walls of the English encampment. The fighting had

been bloody and short. One gateway had given way, several British had pushed

through, raising an expected victory cry, but the English were many within,

and the broken defences were soon rebuilt by a barricade of the dead and dying.

The night attack failed. The dawn of the new day saw the bodies of the British

dead piled before barely charred, sentinel-like oak timbers.

A loud-sung victory for the English. The British had come and were beaten

back. Those few of the Saxons who had wavered at the prospect of battle took

up their weapons and made with all speed for Radingas. There was now hope,

and Aelle, the acclaimed Bretwalda, High King of All Saxons, was to lead them

to a victory even greater. One that would resound in song from mead-hall to