‘I swore an oath to Merlin after I met you in Bernicia, Lord Balin, a solemn oath beneath an ancient oak tree whose saplings first burst forth in the time of the Romans. The gods bore witness to that oath, and they hold me to it. So I am on your side, Balin of the Two Swords, and if I break that oath, then my soul will writhe in the fires of deepest Annwn for eternity.’
‘Merlin awaits us in Dumnonia?’ asked Arthur. He must question the druid on Urien’s words about the truth of Excalibur and what had truly divided the kingdoms at the end of the Great War. Ector had a part to play in those dark days. He had brought Igraine north from Dumnonia to Rheged and left his place as Uther Pendragon’s man. If Arthur was going to heal those old wounds and gather men to fight the Saxons from across Britain’s kingdoms, he must know what happened.
‘I did not say he awaits us,’ Nimue said. ‘He prepares the path for you, Arthur. He goes to Elmet, Powys, Gwynedd, Demetia and Dumnonia to tell men of Excalibur’s return and the man who wields the sword of Britain.’
‘Prepares it how?’ Balin growled.
‘So that men will welcome you, that they understand that the time has come to fight against the invaders. Your legend grows, Arthur. Merlin plants the seed and tends it, growing it so that when you ask, men will come to your banner.’
‘Merlin plays a dangerous game. The kings will not like this news of a new man wielding an old sword who seeks to unite the kingdoms. Why should they welcome a man who threatens their rule?’
‘These are high matters, Lord Balin. You do the fighting and let Merlin and I worry about the deep cunning. We have a war to fight, and we each fight in our own ways. You have your swords, and we have our minds and our power.’
‘Aye, well. Let’s hope Merlin’s cunning doesn’t cost us our lives.’ Balin spat over the side of his horse, clicked his tongue and cantered ahead of the marching column, leaving Arthur to brood on Guinevere, Urien, Merlin and the knife-edge on which his own life perched so precariously. He left Rheged under a cloud with Urien’s disapproval. Much of what Urien had said was true. Arthur was a masterless man, he was no longer the foster son of Ector of Caer Ligualid, he was his own man and oathsworn to no king or kingdom. Arthur’s future rested on Merlin’s dream of defeating the Saxons, and if it failed, Arthur’s future would die with it.
The war band reached Elmet and the king’s stronghold at Loidis seven days after their departure from the Bear Fort. King Gwallog’s hill fortress sat within ancient Roman walls, repaired over the years since the empire’s departure with stone taken from crumbling Roman buildings so that the entire town was ringed by stone walls an arm’s length higher than a man is tall. It was a mixture of old, dressed stone, wattle and thatch, a melding of the old world and the new. As Arthur looked upon gleaming stone and rotting thatch, he wondered how it could be possible that the further time went on, men’s ability to build, carve and set stone had diminished? He wondered why his people had not learned the skills to cut rock, chisel marble, build straight roads and aqueducts from stone. All that knowledge had left the island with the Romans, leaving the Britons with rotting wood and crumbling memories of the empire’s greatness.
A guard of six warriors came from the walls to meet Arthur’s war band. Each warrior wore a red cloak faded to light pink by weather and use, and Arthur marvelled at their armour, for each wore the segmented cuirasses of the Roman legions, metal bands fixed to leather straps which traversed their torsos above iron-studded leather kilts. Each wore a bright Roman-style helmet with an iron peak at its top and oblong shields bearing the Christian cross. They wore short swords on their right hips, and carried Roman-style pilum spears with long, thin shafts of half ash and half iron. Hywel and the men in Arthur’s company who had once been warriors of Elmet kept to the rear of the column with their heads bowed, and their own Roman armour hidden beneath their russet cloaks, for fear they would be recognised by their old comrades and their dispute with King Gwallog reignited.
A big man with a red horse plume crossing the top of his helmet welcomed Arthur and Balin to Loidis, and brought them into a cold stone building which served as King Gwallog’s hall. The big man named himself as Primus Pilus Idnerth, the commander of King Gwallog’s legion of warriors, but King Gwallog himself was away fighting on Elmet’s western border against raiders from Powys. The king left Idnerth and most of Elmet’s warriors at Loidis in case the Saxons attacked from the east. Merlin had visited Loidis before Gwallog marched and warned him of the Saxon hordes massing in Bernicia, and Idnerth chewed his beard when Arthur told him of Octha’s vast army which lingered in Lloegyr. Elmet had fought the Saxons last summer, and Idnerth told the brief tale of a savage battle where they had lost many brave men and only repelled the Saxons at the last. Arthur and Balin’s war band stayed the night in Loidis, and Idnerth and his men were generous with a feast of boar meat, mead, bread, cheese and even a flagon of wine. Arthur had never tasted luxurious Roman wine before, and he found it bitter on his tongue, though Balin enjoyed it well enough, even though he ate in silence and left Arthur to answer Idnerth’s questions.
Idnerth would not commit warriors to Arthur’s cause in the absence of King Gwallog, but if it came to war Elmet could muster six hundred spearmen from its hides, even after the war with Octha, and the king’s hearth troop was a cohort of eighty warriors equipped and trained in the Roman ways who stood ready to fight. Idnerth lamented the dangers on all of Elmet’s borders, and his men told tales of their fight against Octha late into the night. Stories of bravery, warriors who died with honour, and brutal Saxon fighters who came with snarling war dogs. They told of wicked wizards capering before their battle line, and of how Gwallog himself fought in the front line like a champion. Nimue slept outside the stone hall with the war band, for the men of Elmet were all Christ worshippers and shivered at the sight of her pagan face paint, shaved head and carved black staff.
Arthur and Balin agreed not to wait for King Gwallog’s return, and Nimue was impatient to march to Dumnonia and follow Merlin’s path. So Arthur thanked Idnerth for his hospitality and left with the hope of Elmet’s support when it came to war with the Saxons. They marched south, crossing Powys and Gwynedd but avoiding their towns and forts. Nimue persuaded Arthur and Balin to march hard for Dumnonia on Britain’s south coast without stopping to talk to King Cadwallon Longhand of Gwynedd, or King Brochvael the Fanged of Powys. Merlin was in Dumnonia, which was the most south-westerly of the British kingdoms, she said, and if they could return north with Uther Pendragon’s blessing and a force of Dumnonian warriors, the other kings must obey the Pendragon’s command.
They marched hard through deep forests of old oak, spindly beech and sweet-smelling pine, camping beneath the boughs and hunting for their food. The moon shifted from wax to wane as the war band reached south-western Britain and came to the old Roman town of Durnovaria, where Uther Pendragon kept his summer court at its fortress known as the Fist of Dumnonia. A ring of Roman stone walls circled the Fist, with a high stone gate with two arched entrances gated with stout oak doors. The walled part of the Fist could hold one hundred warriors and their families, but a sprawling settlement of wattle houses spread around the fortress on all sides and a cloud of dirty smoke sat above it, hanging still on a warm, early summer’s day. A ditch surrounded the walls, and spear points glinted in the sunlight as warriors patrolled the fighting platform inside the high Roman walls.
A tanner’s yard on the edges of the settlement stank of stale piss, and the warriors grumbled at the stench until they came to an awning beside the road, covered with an old, yellowed sailcloth where a woman with black teeth and curly red hair provided whores and ale for shards of hacksilver. Arthur, Balin and Nimue left the men happily spending what remained of their silver as they approached the Fist’s high gates.
‘State your business,’ said a gate guard. He glanced at Balin’s fox-painted shield and both men’s chain mail before raising an eyebrow at Nimue’s strange face paint and travel-stained white cloak. The guard wore a heavy wooden cross at his chest, over a stuffed and hardened linen breastplate. He wore two long plaits at either side of his head framing his narrow face, a silver ring about his wrist and the back of his head shaved high to leave the back of his skull stubbly and bald.
‘Lord Balin of Bernicia,’ said Balin, ‘Nimue, follower of Merlin the druid, and Arthur of Britain here to talk with High King Uther Pendragon.’
‘Is that the sword?’ asked the guard, and Arthur nodded, sliding Excalibur’s blade an inch from its black scabbard so that its steel shimmered beneath the sun. The man marvelled at it and then looked Arthur up and down. ‘Yannig is my name. Wait here and I will let the king know you have arrived.’
‘Is Merlin here?’ asked Nimue before Yannig could turn away.
‘He was. There were two druids here, Merlin and Kadvuz. They spoke with King Uther and left three days ago on the north road.’
Nimue sagged for a moment, and then straightened herself, gripping her black staff so hard that her knuckles whitened. They had expected to find Merlin waiting at the Fist to help them persuade Uther to send warriors north, and to talk with them, to ask how the druid fared with the other kings on his journey south through Britain’s kingdoms. On the long road from Loidis to Durnovaria, Nimue had pulled the men’s aching teeth, wrapped twisted ankles, cast enchantments on spear blades, stared into darting flames and told men if their wives remained loyal whilst they were gone, and told men’s futures by the lines on their hands. She stared at the stars and told the warriors tales behind each constellation in the black night sky, stories of magical bulls, giants, heroes and old gods. Nimue filled their nights with stories of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Gwydion, Bran the Blessed and other legendary heroes, and the men shared their meat and mead with her in return. She also told them of the Saxon gods, of Woden, Thunor and Týr, all harsh gods who urged Saxon men to war, gods of thunder, foresight, ravens, cruelty, with halls in the sky where the dead slain in battle could live forever. Now, she tried to keep her air of aloof power and confidence, but Arthur saw the waver in her at the news that Merlin had already left.
Yannig returned with two similarly clad warriors, and they led Arthur, Nimue and Balin through the gates and along Roman cobbled pathways towards Uther’s hall. Limewashed buildings topped with thatch sat between perfectly straight streets. The warriors inside the walls all wore the same linen breastplates, and two braids hung on either side of their faces. Each man wore a green cloak, and all eyed Nimue with barely concealed fear. A small priest in a dirty brown tunic came running from a long building with a high cross on its gable end. He snarled at Nimue, making the sign of the cross and cursing her as the spawn of Satan until she hissed at him and threatened to turn him into a goat, and then he ran away with his skirts hitched around his knees.
Uther’s hall was like nothing Arthur had ever seen before. It was a lofty building held up by glaringly white pillars along a sheltered, open walkway. Red tiles completely covered the roof, and Arthur couldn’t determine if they were wooden or clay. However, they gave the building the angular and sharp appearance of a drawn sword. Supporting timbers painted red criss-crossed the gable end and stood between the bright white walls. It looked like something built by men from a different age, with skills long forgotten. Arthur stepped inside the doorway and a picture of fish leaping around a man in a great chariot sprawled across a floor made up of tiny tiles. The place was airy and clean with no hearth fire at its centre, but two fireplaces on each wall. Tall windows and square holes cut into the whitewashed walls cast bright sunlight into the room in stark contrast to the dark, smoke-filled halls of other kings and lords, and Arthur understood why Guinevere longed to escape the Bear Fort. Servants fussed at round tables, setting out jugs of mead and loaves of bread.
‘It’s as if the Romans never left,’ whispered Balin, staring up at the high walls, and at a finely woven tapestry on the far wall above a throne inset with gold and silver. A metallic-sounding horn blared, and six warriors tramped into the hall carrying spears and a tall man came before them holding forth a long-handled axe tied about with wooden rods. The other five warriors wore green cloaks and carried shields bearing the red dragon of Dumnonia. They stiffened, stamping heavy, nailed boots on the floor, and then a broad-shouldered, hunched figure came from a side door, shuffling into the light. He was as wide as two men, with a huge bull-like head atop boulder shoulders. There was a power about the man, and the hall fell to a hush as he entered. It had to be Uther, Arthur thought. The figure shuffled because he limped and grimaced each time his left leg touched the floor, an injury from some long-ago battle. He had long white hair tied back from his face and a white beard. His skin was sun-darkened like seasoned wood and cracked like old tree bark. One eye glared fiercely at Arthur, and the other was an empty, cavernous hole surrounded by heavy scars. The big man shuffled to the throne and eased himself into it with a groan, and Arthur noticed that three fingers were missing from his left hand. He had never seen a man so ravaged by war. The little priest who had spat at Nimue scuttled in behind the old man, carrying a large cross completely covered in gold leaf. He set it down on the tiled floor, made the sign of the cross and glowered at Nimue.
‘King Uther Pendragon,’ shouted the warrior holding the axe wrapped in rods. ‘Son of Madoc, grandson of Constantine, King of Dumnonia, High King and Pendragon of Britain.’
All in the hall bowed to Uther Pendragon, including Arthur; even Nimue bowed her head in respect to the battle-scarred old king.
‘My lord king,’ said Balin, and his voice rang around the hall.
Uther raised his right hand, a gnarled thing of bent, twisted fingers and purple veins. ‘I know who you are,’ Uther said, his voice a deep, dry croak. ‘Merlin came before you and told me all about you, the sword, and the Saxons.’
‘Then you know what we must ask of you, lord king,’ said Arthur, finding the courage to speak by clutching Excalibur’s hilt.
‘I know, pup. And I see you carry my younger brother Ambrosius’ sword in your soft hand. Merlin gave him that sword, long ago. He believed Ambrosius was the man to drive the Saxons back into the sea, a man who was not a king, but a fearsome and respected warrior, a man all kingdoms would rally behind. This woman can only be Merlin’s volva. I’ve heard all about you as well. A daughter of the Irish, captured and raised by Saxons now joined to Merlin’s druid magic. We are a God-fearing kingdom here in Dumnonia, not like those heathens in the north, so don’t cast your spiteful frown at me, woman, or I’ll have you flogged in the square. Your shaved head, face paint and staff have no power over me, so look away before I give you to my men.’
Nimue straightened her shoulders, but Arthur noticed she looked away from Uther, her eyes fixed on the hall’s far end, beyond where the king’s bulk squatted on his glittering throne.
‘You come to me for men,’ Uther continued in his harsh tone, ‘and Merlin believes that a clap of his hands commands me to give you two hundred spearmen to die fighting Saxon dogs in lands already lost. Well, life isn’t that simple, and I am king here. The Pendragon of all Britain. Many had to die for me to become Pendragon. Nobody ever gave me two hundred spears without a fight. Proud Lord Balin here has already lost his country, his men and his family. Why should I support you two impudent, untested and unproven pieces of toad shit with my spearmen?’
‘Merlin, lord king…’ Arthur began, but Uther shook his monstrous head so violently that Arthur held his tongue.
‘A pox on Merlin, his druidic cunning, and your hopeless war.’ Uther coughed and rubbed his shovel-sized hand against his temples. He seemed to wrestle with himself, grumbling and mumbling softly so that Arthur couldn’t hear. ‘But Merlin had power, once, and messengers have come to me from Gododdin, Powys, Lothian and Elmet to warn of the Saxon threat, and so I have granted his request.’
Arthur let out a gasp of relief. Two hundred Dumnonian spearmen wasn’t enough to fight three thousand Saxons, but it would encourage the rest of Britain to provide warriors once they saw the Pendragon’s dragon banner at Arthur’s side.
‘On one condition,’ Uther cackled, and leaned forward, his dead eye seeming to stare at Arthur from its cavernous hole. ‘You, pup, must fight a man of my choosing. If you live, you shall march from Dumnonia with two hundred of my best spearmen. If you lose, you die. So, what say you, wielder of Excalibur, Merlin’s last great hope?’
‘I’ll fight your man,’ said Arthur, having no choice but to accept the high king’s challenge. Uther laughed and roared at the priest to show his picked warrior in, and Arthur’s stomach twisted as a monstrous warrior ducked beneath the side door’s lintel and strode into Uther’s hall. He carried a long sword, and a buckler strapped to his left arm, he was stripped to the waist and his chest and arms writhed with thick, corded muscle.
‘Then you will fight Mynog the Boar, the undefeated killer of twenty men in single combat,’ Uther crowed, enjoying the fear on Arthur’s face. ‘Defeat him and prove your mettle. My men will follow a man who can best Mynog the Boar. No need for delay, let’s have the fight here, now. We’ll see if Merlin’s power holds. If you die, pup, I’ll let my men whore your witch here until she begs for death. I’ll take your men into my service. Your sword will be mine and nobody shall remember your name. You will be lost to memory forever, nothing but a shit-stain reminder of Merlin’s failure.’
Mynog the Boar raised his sword and let out a blood-curdling war cry, and Arthur dropped his hand to Excalibur’s hilt, staring at the killer he must fight for his and Nimue’s lives.
19
