‘Do as I command,’ Ector barked, his face suddenly hard and angry. ‘I must organise supply lines, give orders to the different war bands, plan a route to our borders. I must count spears, shields, horses, and make sure we have enough food and ale to feed our warriors for a week. But I would not have Igraine alone this night. Urien will not come to her. There is no love there and her son Owain is away fighting. So, do this thing for me, son. Keep my old friend Igraine company and her fire warm.’
Arthur nodded, but his shame rose to new heights. He stared at Ector’s back as he stalked off, trailed by the weeping handmaidens he’d called from the queen’s chamber. Arthur kicked a loose stone off the hilltop and had never felt so low. He had started the march from Caer Ligualid hoping to become a blooded warrior, his forearm tattooed with a death ring, but had instead returned from the march as a failure, scorned and mocked by the war band behind his back. Huell thought him less than a piece of cow shit on his boot, and Arthur knew Huell stirred bad feeling about him amongst the men. They thought him a spoiled lordling, given a horse, spear and knife without earning them, and he wasn’t even Ector’s true-born son. Arthur could only imagine what Huell would say when he learned Arthur nursed a sick queen through the night whilst the men prepared for war and a druid’s sacred quest.
A rattling cough came from inside the small room, and Arthur cursed and ducked inside the door. He closed it behind him and trudged to the queen’s bedside. The logs in the fire had burned down to glowing embers, so he grabbed two freshly cut logs from a stack next to the wall and threw them on the embers. Arthur sighed, took a milking stool from the corner and sat next to the old woman. The logs crackled and dry bark popped; the wood caught fire and brightened the room, and for the first time Arthur saw Queen Igraine’s face. Her pale skin, drawn tight across high cheekbones, gave her the look of a fetch, or ghost from Annwn, the old gods’ underworld. Her breath rattled in her chest, made louder by a still quiet broken only by the fire’s crackle and hiss.
Arthur settled himself on the stool, leaning back against the wall, and wondered if Huell was laughing at him now, joking with the war band at Arthur, the spoiled orphan bastard playing maid to a dying queen. His eyes grew heavy in the fire’s warmth and time passed slowly, Queen Igraine still and unmoving. His thoughts turned to Lunete and whether Ector would really marry her to Huell. She was far too good for the brutal warrior, and Arthur imagined her subjected to a long life of suffering and sadness, whelping Huell’s brats, taking his beatings, grinding his grain, spinning his yarn and sewing his clothes. That could not be Lunete’s destiny, just as this could not be Arthur’s.
An idea occurred to him as he stared into the orange-red flames. He should follow Lunete’s example and do as he wished, rather than as Ector ordered him. Why should he play nursemaid to a queen and go on a dangerous quest deep into Saxon lands? Ector always forgave Lunete for her wilfulness. Had she not ridden to join the war band when her father ordered her to stay at home with the womenfolk, the children and the elderly? Lunete did as she pleased. She carried a bow instead of a distaff, and Ector and his men loved Lunete for her wildness. Arthur could leave, he could take his spear, his knife and his horse and ride away. He could go south to Elmet and join King Gwallog’s service, or north to Gododdin, or even further south to Uther Pendragon in Dumnonia.
Dreams filled Arthur’s thought cage. He saw himself becoming a famous warrior in Uther’s ranks and returning to Ector as a champion or joining Gwallog’s legions and becoming a hero. The men of Elmet followed the Roman ways, wore their old armour and carried their weapons, and Arthur imagined himself riding to war from Elmet in a red cloak and segmented armour with a short sword and a reputation for battle prowess. Arthur put another log on the fire and decided that he would leave. He wasn’t even sure that he was a Rheged man. Nobody knew of Arthur’s parentage or from where he hailed. They had only ever told Arthur that he was left outside Ector’s hall as a baby, wrapped in an old cloak. If Huell and the men cursed him for a bastard orphan, an unwanted and unworthy thing, he could take to the road and forge his own destiny, prove Huell and the rest of them wrong. Fewer and fewer folk worshipped the gods of the druids any more, so why should Arthur care for Merlin or Kadvuz’s commands, or for a lost foreign princess?
‘Boy?’ croaked a whispery voice, startling Arthur from his dreams. He started and leant forward on his stool. Queen Igraine’s eyes were open, and they were the grey of a winter sea, but bright and fierce. Her head turned to the side and her eyes locked with his. Arthur swallowed and leant closer to her.
‘My queen,’ he stuttered. ‘Ector asked me to stay with you, but I can fetch your maidens if you need food or drink?’
‘You are Ector’s boy?’ Her pale tongue licked at dry lips, and her hand trembled where it rested on the bed furs. Igraine’s voice was as dusty and dry as old thatch. Her words crept out of her throat as though they were reluctant and wanted to get back inside her.
‘Not his son, no. I am his… foster son. Arthur.’
‘Of course you are. You have grown into a fine young man.’ She smiled at him, a slow, dry smile which wrinkled the thin skin of her face.
‘Thank you, my lady,’ he said, the strangeness of the situation making him uncomfortable.
‘I must sleep again, but talk to me, lad. Just to help me sleep, tell me about yourself. Of your life at Caer Ligualid, of Ector and his children.’
Arthur wanted to say no. He was a warrior, trained for war, not talking to sick old women. But the look in her sea-grey eyes softened him, crushing his pride, tugging at his heart. So, he spoke to her of Kai, and Ector and Lunete. Igraine closed her eyes, but her smile remained. He added more logs to the fire and told her of his training, of the time when he and Kai had put nettles in Huell’s boot, and he had thrashed them with his belt. Arthur told her about Lunete’s wildness, and how Ector’s wife had died from the coughing sickness. The night waned, and a sliver of light poked through the closed window shutters to cast floating dust motes in pallid yellow. The sun was coming up, and it was time for Arthur to pack his meagre belongings and leave the Bear Fort before Urien’s warriors woke.
‘It is time for me to go now, my queen,’ he whispered, not wanting to wake her. ‘I am sorry if I talked too much, but I hope you recover soon.’
‘Wait,’ she whispered. Her pale, thin hand rose slowly, trembling as it went to her chest and searched beneath the furs. ‘Thank you for the tale of your life. Perhaps one day, Ector will tell you the tale of my life. We are of similar age, he and I, though my sickness has made me old before my time. Perhaps he will tell of what I was like in those long-ago days, which seem so bright and golden against the grim twilight which Vortigern, Merlin and Uther brought upon us all.’ Igraine coughed, and her face twisted in pain.
Arthur reached to her table where a wooden cup of milk sat beside the long-gone-out rushlight. He lifted it carefully to her lips and Igraine drank a sip, which seemed to give her peace.
‘Here, boy,’ she said, and her stiff fingers suddenly gripped his hand with a strength that belied her frailty. ‘Take this as a token of mine, a gift from the time before the Great War. Keep it with you, for luck.’ She pressed something cold and hard into his hand. Arthur pulled away, and her token was a bronze disc half the size of Arthur’s palm. A dragon with mighty wings and raking claws snarled on one side, and a small hole punctured its top. He bowed in thanks but struggled to find the right words. It was a fine gift, too fine for him, who hardly knew her. But Queen Igraine had closed her eyes again, and he did not want to disturb her, or insult her by refusing the fine piece of jewellery. Arthur closed his hand around it. He could use it to buy food or ale on his journey, or trade it for a better knife, perhaps even a helmet. He left the chamber and found the handmaidens waiting outside with the door guards. The sun crept over the horizon, and Arthur hurried from the hall’s mound. It had been a long, strange, sleepless night, but it was time for Arthur to find his destiny on his own terms.
4
Arthur pulled the cloak of his hood up and kept his head low. Overnight, dark clouds had filled the sky, churning and malevolent above whistling winds which shook the thatch and blew strands of hay across the Bear Fort’s hilltop. He reached the courtyard below King Urien’s hall and walked quietly around burned-out fires and snoring warriors. Men slept in hovels, sties, barns, or out in the open beneath cloaks and horse blankets. A dog barked and ran across Arthur’s path, and he cursed the animal as three men sleeping beside a fire’s charred remains grumbled and rolled over. The warriors would soon be up, taking a morning meal and preparing their weapons. Ector would lead long lines of spearmen out of the Bear Fort and east across Rheged’s rugged countryside to fight the Saxon invaders and keep Rheged’s borders safe. Arthur wanted to be long gone by then, south, he thought, to Dumnonia. As far away from Rheged as possible.
Arthur still held the queen’s bronze disc in his hand, his fingers running over the etched dragon, wondering if he would get in trouble for accepting it. A big man in a leather vest vomited behind a drystone wall, and the reek of ale made Arthur’s stomach turn. A wind-whipped rain surged from the heavens and Arthur pulled his cloak closer about his shoulders. He hurried through the mud, darting in and out of the snarl of passageways and lanes between buildings until he reached the stables. He found his mare and stroked her nose; she bobbed her head and Arthur scratched her ear. He tossed a thick blanket over her back and fitted the bridle.
Arthur wondered if he should find Kai. They were brothers, and Arthur knew Kai would be hurt to find out that he had left without even saying goodbye, and the same would go for Lunete. But they would try to talk him out of what he must do, and Arthur must go. It was time to become a man, a warrior on his own path. The mare whickered as Arthur led her through the courtyard, each sound making him wince for fear of waking and being recognised by one of Ector’s war band. But he reached the wide oak gates without challenge. One side was already open as a line of Urien’s slaves made the morning trudge down to the river for fresh water. Arthur led the mare through the open gate and kept his head down, ignoring the spearman there who did not challenge him, huddled as he was beneath a heavy, hooded cloak. A loud clanking sound made Arthur jump, and he clicked his tongue to urge his horse on down the winding path away from the Bear Fort. Priests rang a bell, clanked a pot or sang to call folk to the first prayer of the day.
The path levelled out as the forest loomed up ahead. Arthur winced at the sound of the rain thrumming against the fields and treetops and the howling wind. He leapt upon the mare’s back and grabbed the leather bridle. He carried his spear, long knife, a bundle of flatbread, some dried fish and a half-empty skin of ale. Arthur dug his heels into the mare’s flanks and rode away from his quest, from the Bear Fort, King Urien, Ector and his brother and sister with a heavy heart. He reached the forest’s edge where silver birch and elm twisted together like a brooch of silver and gold, and just as he was about to enter the woodland, the sound of hooves beat above the rain. Arthur reined his horse in and glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see two riders approaching. They galloped along the pathway, their horses throwing up great clods of earth and grass as they splashed through the rainwater. Arthur peered into the sheeting rain, which had become heavier as the morning light vanished into a stormy gloom.
Lunete’s crow-black hair streamed behind her as her horse galloped through the rain, and Arthur cursed his luck. Kai rode beside her, his brown cloak billowing behind him. Arthur glanced at the forest and for a heartbeat he considered trying to outrun them, riding east and then turning south. He could lose them in the woodland and escape to freedom. Again, the idea of returning with a reputation built on the skill of his spear burned bright in his thought cage, and then died as the wind ruffled his hair and he realised his naivety. It was a foolish, childish dream. So he waited, head bowed for Kai and Lunete to reach him. He had failed again and was sure now that he would never amount to anything, never be a great warrior or leader of men. It was time to join Ector’s war band, to take the mockery and scathing barbs from Huell and get on with life. That image of riding south to become a famous warrior, arm thick with death rings, wrists heavy with silver and gold, was dead. He would marry a warrior’s daughter, live in a hovel in Caer Ligualid and see out his days just like everybody else.
‘What are you doing?’ Lunete shouted through the rain. She reined her horse in, and it wheeled around in a circle, her rain-soaked hair flicking about her shoulders as she turned her head to keep her angry eyes on Arthur.
‘Please tell me you aren’t running away, brother?’ said Kai as his horse slowed and stopped next to Arthur’s mare. His eyes bore into Arthur’s, and he looked so like his father in that moment that Arthur felt like the great champion was judging him through his son’s gaze.
‘I was…’ Arthur began, but Lunete laughed mockingly.
‘You were running away. How could you?’ she said, her face twisted in disgust. ‘I saw you leaving and woke Kai.’
‘I’m not running away. It’s just time to strike out on my own. Make my way in the world.’
‘Strike out on your own?’ said Kai. He shook his head in disbelief, rain pouring down his face in rivulets. ‘After all my father has done for you? We have a chance here, Arthur. They have entrusted us with a glorious task – to ride deep into Lloegyr and rescue the daughter of King Leodegrance. There will never be a better chance for us to make our names.’
‘I know that, but Huell will lead, and the men look down on me. They mock me, and surely there must be more to my life than mockery and failure.’
‘The only way to shut Huell up is to earn his respect. The men won’t look down on you once you’ve earned your place in the war band. This is not the way. It looks like you…’
‘It looks like you are afraid,’ Lunete shouted above the wind and rain. ‘It looks like you are running away because you are frightened to ride into Bernicia and face the Saxons. Are you afraid?’
‘No!’ Arthur shouted back at her. ‘I do not fear battle…’
‘What is it then? What are you running from?’
Arthur wiped the rain from his eyes with the back of his hand, his hood was soaked through, and he pulled it away from his head. He reached down and took the queen’s bronze disc from the pouch at his belt and passed it between his fingers, rubbing the dragon, its wings, fangs and claws.
‘Are you a coward, brother?’ Kai said, anger turning his face hard.
‘I am no coward. I just want more. More than being a simple warrior, more than a life lived as an unknown destined to die old and withered in a shit-stinking hovel in Caer Ligualid.’ Arthur realised he bellowed those words which had come from deep within him. Now that he had given voice to his ambition, a lightness fell over Arthur. He wanted more. He felt it stirring within him like burning desire.
‘Well, earn it then,’ said Lunete, and her blue eyes searched Arthur’s own. He held her gaze, and she nodded, seeing the fierce determination there.
‘What life do you think there is for us in this place? You married to Huell, forced to meet his every whim, suffer his brutal embrace and whelp his pups? Is that what you want?’
