The war band spent the night at the ruined Roman villa. The warriors kept the raiders’ fire blazing in the courtyard and sat around it, drinking stolen ale and eating stolen meat. Arthur sat alone inside the crumbling walls, wanting to join in as the men became drunk and congratulated Kai for his kill and told old war stories. Huell took a bone needle and made the death ring on Kai’s right forearm. He made myriad pricks with a needle the war band used to stitch wounds and smeared the bloody ring with a mix of soot from the fire and crushed plants mixed into a dark paste. Arthur’s shame kept him away, and he sat in the darkness on a floor of tiny square stones which had once made a fine floor picture but were now as scattered and random as beach shale. The men told tales of the Great War, of how the kings of Britain had united to fight Vortigern, the Usurper of Deira, and the army of Saxon warriors he brought across the sea. They cheered the tale of how Ector and Ambrosius Aurelianus had fought and killed many Saxons in a great battle on the country’s wild east coast. They told of Excalibur, the sword of Britain, which Ambrosius wielded to slay Saxons by the hundreds.
The roof was intact in its corners, and so the corner beams and surviving red tiles kept any rain off Arthur during the night. He wondered at the skill and craftmanship that the Romans used to make such buildings, which had crumbled and decayed across Britain. Men said that the Romans could heat the floors of their buildings, and that those floors were more beautiful than the finest tapestries. Arthur could imagine it as he toyed with the tiny square pieces, which felt like shards of a broken jug, each one painted with bright colours which had become stained and pitted by time. The skill to make such things had left with the legions, and now men built in timber, thatch and wattle which rotted and stank and needed constant repair. Arthur tried to block out the war stories and wondered what else the Rome-folk knew, what secrets they had of history, law, war and healing that were lost to Arthur’s people.
Arthur lay down beneath his cloak and closed his eyes, unable to shake off the memories of the day’s fight and how he had missed his chance to become a warrior. Lunete lay down beside him silently, and he felt her big blue eyes staring at him in the darkness but could find nothing to say to her. Even she had fought well, using her bow with devastating effectiveness. Perhaps it is I who should spin yarn and she who should do the fighting. Eventually, he drifted off into a fitful sleep, only to be woken by a big hand shaking his shoulder.
‘Wake up, lad,’ said Ector, his hard face peering at Arthur through the gloom. ‘Follow me.’ Ector held out his callused paw and helped Arthur rise. He followed the scarred warrior out into the courtyard, which was deserted, but the fire still blazed and warmed the sleep from Arthur’s eyes. ‘It’s my watch, so I thought we could talk awhile.’
‘Yes, spear-father,’ Arthur said. Ector took a spit from the fire and offered Arthur a chunk of roast beef, which he took hungrily, blowing at the meat and his burning fingers before popping the juicy chunk into his mouth.
‘We might as well eat. The beast is dead. It’s no good to the farmer now.’
‘Where did the raiders come from?’
‘From the borders of Bernicia, just as we thought. They fought for landowners there against the Saxons until the enemy became too many and the fighting too hard. So, they thought they’d come to Rheged for easier pickings.’
‘And now they’ll never leave.’ Arthur glanced around the villa at the spears Huell and the warriors had sunk into the ground with grisly heads spiked on their points. Firelight flickered on the dried blood and greasy hair of the severed heads, and Arthur looked away, the meat in his mouth suddenly losing its lustre.
‘And now they’ll never leave,’ Ector agreed. ‘They raped those three women mercilessly and killed their families. They cut a swathe of death and suffering across our lands, and it’s our job to protect our people from wicked men.’
‘Why does God not protect them?’
Ector laughed. ‘That’s a question for Father Iddawg when we get home, or a question for the old gods. But these are Urien’s lands, and we are his warriors. The people look to us for protection, Arthur, so we must be every bit as brutal and savage as the men we face.’
‘I let you down today.’ Arthur looked away from his foster father and the severed heads and into the campfire, searching there for a reason why he couldn’t live up to Ector’s expectations, but found no answers in the red glow.
‘I’m as proud of you today as I was yesterday, lad. Never doubt that. You’ll be a great man someday. You are clever and brave. God only knows what goes on inside that thought cage of yours, but it’s in your blood. You just need to trust in yourself, boy.’
‘What blood? I’m an orphan, as Huell keeps reminding me. But he calls me a bastard. How can I be both a bastard and an orphan? I could have the blood of a peasant, priest, or a warrior. Who knows what I am?’
‘Never mind that. Your fate is what you make of it. You have a brain inside that head of yours, and you fight well. Here, take this.’ Ector passed Arthur a spear and picked one up himself. Ector had already wrapped each spear point in rags from dead men’s clothes. ‘We lost men today, good men. We’ll lose more before the summer’s over. The prisoner I questioned told of hordes of Saxons. Fifty ships landed in Bernicia this spring commanded by a man named Octha. We must tell King Urien and protect our borders. We must be strong and protect our people, Arthur.’
‘Fifty ships!’ Arthur gasped. Urien kept a captured Saxon warship at one of his western ports and Arthur had seen it once. Sleek hulled with a dragon-carved prow, it looked too flimsy to sail across the wild ocean to Britain’s east, but the Saxons braved those dangers in increasing numbers and each ship could carry sixty warriors to Britain’s shores. ‘That’s three thousand warriors.’
‘See? It would have taken me days to work out such a number.’
‘Why do they come here? What’s wrong with their own lands?’
‘They think we’re weak? Our land is more fertile than theirs? They love war? Who knows? All I know is that we must throw them back. Bernicia and Deira are lost, as is Kent in the south. That’s almost the entire east coast of Britain lost to the Saxons. If we want to stop them, we must kill them. Now, raise your spear.’
‘Please, I am tired and we…’
‘You are tired? Do you think Saxons give a turd if you are tired? They are coming for us, Arthur. They will kill, rape and burn until everything we have is gone, we are dead, and our lands are theirs. The Saxons are merciless, lad, and so must you be.’
Ector flashed his weapon forward and cracked the ash stave against Arthur’s head. He staggered and then raised his own spear. Arthur shook his head and Ector hit again, this time striking Arthur in the ribs, and he doubled over in pain. Anger flared in Arthur then, anger at his shame, at his hesitation, at the way the men looked at him, at being an orphan, at being alone. He gritted his teeth and attacked, lunging at Ector with the forms he had learned from the old warrior every day since his memories began. Ector parried and ducked and smiled as Arthur’s spear almost broke through his guard. The two men danced around each other, and the spear staves sang through the air, twisting, lunging and parrying with deftness and skill until Arthur’s brow became wet with sweat. Their weapons came together, and Ector’s left hand snapped out and grabbed Arthur around the neck, his huge hands strong and rough.
‘You almost had me there,’ Ector said, and released his grip. ‘You have all the skill you need, lad. Just learn to be more savage, more brutal than the men you fight. The spear is not just the blade, it’s also the stave. You have your hands, your head, knees, and feet. You have a long knife on your belt and your teeth. Fight like a bear, Arthur, fight like a wolf, and fight for our people who cannot fight for themselves. Follow the warrior’s code as I have taught you, but show no mercy to the enemy, Arthur, for mercy is the dream of weak men who have not seen the face of war. The Saxons hate us, with a passion far beyond the rivalry between the kingdoms of Britain. They believe themselves superior, that their gods command them to take our lands from us, and they will show no mercy to a Briton. Hate and rage are powerful, son, but they can also be the betrayers of warriors. The temptation when fighting led by hate is to stab, hack and slash without control. A warrior must use his skill and his mind to remain calm and strike with determined force. A man’s life is precious to him, and he will defend it with every scrap of strength in his body. It is not easy to kill a man. When you fight, you must fight to kill, full force. A man I thought I had killed and left lying on the ground once stabbed me in the leg. An enemy will fight like a demon from the Annwn underworld to cling on to life, so strike hard and without mercy. Rip them and rend them. You must harden yourself to it, Arthur, or you will surely die in this harsh world.’
Arthur could not sleep that night, listening to the whimpers of the three women the war band had rescued from the raiders who wept inconsolably at the horrors they had suffered at the hands of the bandits. Ector’s words rattled around his head like mice in a barn wall, of how he must harden himself to the world if he was to take his place within it. Everything Ector had said Arthur had heard before from Ector, Huell and the warriors of Ector’s war band on the training ground, but now that Arthur had seen battle, it all seemed more real, more relevant and more important to remember.
The war band rose early that morning and the three women rode captured horses behind Ector, Kai and Arthur whilst the war band marched in a silence punctured only by the cough or moan from a man suffering from too much ale the night before. The news of the Saxons and their fifty ships quietened them, and the men feared what that new army meant for them and their families, for it meant war, fear, death and suffering.
‘Thank you for saving my life,’ Arthur had said to Lunete the moment she awoke, and a broad smile creased her pretty face. He had helped her up from the broken-tiled floor and given her his last oatcake to break her morning fast. As the warriors struck camp and prepared litters for their dead, Arthur had found Kai and congratulated him on his bravery. Arthur marvelled at the dark blue death ring etched on Kai’s right forearm, and his foster brother had grabbed Arthur in a warm embrace. Amends were made and Arthur rode with the war band back to King Urien’s Bear Fort with Ector’s words burned into his mind like a cattle brand. He had to steel himself to what must be done, had to be ready to kill and strike with his spear, and he promised himself that next time he would strike without hesitation.
The war band marched through the forests and hills of Rheged under a pale blue sky the colour of winter ice. The kingdom of Rheged sat in the north-west of Britain. Britain contained many kingdoms. To the north was Dal Riata, Gododdin, Lothian and Pictland, to Rheged’s east were the lost kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. South of Rheged lay Elmet, and then Dumnonia ruled by Uther Pendragon, the king of kings. To the south-east lay Kent and other lands lost to the Saxons, just as Deira and Bernicia were. Finally, the western kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys and Gwent, and finally Demetia ruled by King Morholt and his wild Irishmen who had conquered that land a generation before Arthur was born. Each kingdom was distinct and fought to protect its borders, its woodlands, its cattle, salt, tin, clay, shale, jet, lead, iron and copper from jealous and warlike neighbours.
The Bear Fort stood high and proud atop its promontory looking down onto the River Eden as the warriors crested a heather covered hilltop. The Bear Fort was a timber hall built by King Urien’s father, Cynfarch the Cold, perched on a steep-sided hill inside the River Eden’s wide meander, which flowed out into the grey sea to the west. Cynfarch was a cunning old dog and had ordered every man in his kingdom to help build a mound atop the hill, and a hall atop the mound. Below the hall and mound, a wooden wall of sharpened timber stakes ringed the hilltop, encircled by a deep ditch. Inside the walls was a wide courtyard with thatched houses and room for blacksmiths, weavers, potters, craftworkers and Urien’s courtiers. Many lords of Britain made their homes in the ruins left by the Romans. The neatly dressed stone walls were beyond the ken of any craftsmen in the kingdoms born in the fiery wake of the legion’s departure. But Cynfarch built a new fortress, high and impregnable, or so he hoped. Marshland and reeds surrounded it on one side and the river on the other. Pastures and farmland swept away to north and south, and coppiced woodland to the east. The west led to the sea, to trade, fishing and salt pans. So the Bear Fort was both a snarling clifftop fortress and a rich hub for trade, silver and wealth.
Arthur stared at the pointed walls, the vast, lofty hall and its thatched roof. The hall appeared to be made of gold, shining in the sunlight, and the walls resembled sharp spears encircling the place, like a hall of an ancient god soaring high in the clouds. Smoke from a dozen fires hazed the hill and sat above the Bear Fort like its very own cloud, and as the war band marched up the worn path towards the fortress, a horn blared long and loud to announce their arrival.
Arthur and Kai secured the horses in a stable by the gate, and just as Arthur emerged from the stink of horse and fouled hay, he found Huell waiting for him at the stable door. The stocky warrior chuckled as Arthur approached. He had taken a shallow cut to his forehead during the fight, and his brawny forearms were thick with death rings.
‘I saw you, bastard,’ Huell said, his eyes narrowing. ‘You’ve a coward’s heart inside of you. Ector can’t see it, but I can. Might be better for us all if you just left, rode off in the night and never came back. I don’t want you beside me when we face the Saxons, boy. Your spear will drop, or you’ll run, and our men will die. So, piss off when it’s dark, run away. You know you want to.’
Arthur just carried on walking, pretending that the warrior’s words hadn’t affected him, even though they sliced into his heart like a sharp blade.
‘What did he want?’ asked Kai as they jogged to catch up with Ector.
‘Nothing.’
‘Ignore him. He’s full of piss and wind. He had his eye on Lunete, and she’s only got eyes for you.’
‘What?’ said Arthur.
‘The men talk of it, that Huell will ask my father for Lunete’s hand. His own wife died in childbirth two winters back. Come now, you know Lunete has loved you since we were boys. Don’t play the innocent.’ Deep down, Arthur knew Lunete loved him, but it was the love of a child, of a young girl for an older boy, and Arthur was a man now. He liked Lunete, her wildness and ferocity and her bright eyes, but it was the love for a sister, nothing more.
Kai punched Arthur on the shoulder and Arthur punched him back, but they had thankfully caught up with Ector who strode towards King Urien’s hall, and Arthur could remain silent. The Bear Fort took its name from a monstrous bear’s skull mounted above the hall’s wide oak doors. It snarled down at Arthur, bone white with teeth as long as a man’s finger. Urien had killed the beast himself when he was Arthur’s age, and as he stalked beneath its snarl, Huell’s words continued to sting him like a whip.
Two burly spearmen guarded the door, and they frowned as Arthur and Kai passed between them. A wall of heat hit Arthur as he entered King Urien’s great hall. The warmth was like the blast from a furnace, but tinged with the acrid smell of sweat, leather and iron. The roof was high and smoke-blackened. Torches flickered in iron crutches set high on support posts which stretched from floor to rafters. Shields with Urien’s bear sigil hung on the walls, along with shields of men Urien and his warriors had slain in battle. Warriors filled the place, men wearing hard-baked leather armour, a handful in chain mail, and all peering over one another for a glimpse of what occurred at King Urien’s high seat. Arthur shouldered through the warriors, past men he recognised and others he didn’t. Men with braided beards, some with blue-black tattoos on their faces, others with scars and missing teeth.
