Targo’s eyes did not smile although he spoke as if in jest.
‘If I was in the Saxon positions, I’d dig deep pits full of nice, sharp stakes to impale you as you charge up the hill. Then I’d regroup on another steep grade, and do it all over again. Your losses would be horrific.’
Artor nodded grimly. ‘It’s just as well that you aren’t Glamdring Ironfist,’ he said, acknowledging Targo’s wisdom. In the practical aspects of warfare, Targo was a master without peer.
Artor came to a sudden decision.
‘Odin!’ he called.
His huge bodyguard stepped forward into the circle of light, and bowed his head.
‘Find Ulf - and try not to scare him silly.’
Odin was almost at the leather door flap when Artor spoke again.
‘While you’re at it, order someone to pluck Gruffydd from his wife’s bed. He knows these particular Saxons well, and if anyone can provide us with some insight, then Gruffydd is our man.’
Odin nodded and slid out of the tent on silent feet.
The men resumed their hunched examination of the maps. The oil fire smoked in its pottery jar and the flame flickered, so that even Artor’s handsome face was turned into a grotesque mask in the half-light.
The inner council was still no further into their deliberations when Odin returned, impassively ushering Ulf into the tent. The Celt immediately fell to his knees in the presence of his king.
‘Up, Ulf, I can’t talk to a warrior when he’s on his knees.’
Ulf rose to his feet.
‘You’re the only person available to me who has seen this Ironfist and lived,’ Artor said. ‘Describe him for me, Ulf, for I must understand the man if I am to defeat him.’
In those short weeks since the massacre of Artor’s emissaries, Ulf had tried to banish all thoughts of Ironfist from his conscious memory. The Celt felt physical pain at the possibility of returning to face the Saxon chieftain and having to revisit that slate-grey expanse of open ground, soaked with the blood of men and horses.
But Ulf tried.
‘Ironfist is big, near to your size, and he’s arrogant and ruthless. He had us surrounded before we knew it, so he commands with confidence. And he plans ahead. The Saxons must have been hiding in the woods long before we arrived.’
Ulf ’s voice trailed away but, conscious of six pairs of eyes fixed upon his face, he hurriedly lurched back into speech.
‘The man lives by some semblance of honour, my lord, for he offered Gaheris his life in deference to King Lot. But when the prince refused, the Saxon didn’t seem surprised. He seemed . . . well . . . pleased that Gaheris had defied him. He forced us to watch the murder of our friends until each and every one was dead. Gaheris was obliged to watch the other emissaries as they perished.’
Ulf lapsed into silence.
‘Take your time, Ulf, ’ Artor said gently, for the warrior’s face was paper white, and his lips and cheeks seemed bloodless.
The silence continued until Artor spoke again.
‘Odin, step forward. Does Ironfist look similar to Odin? Come, lad. I have urgent need of your eyes.’
To his credit, Ulf raised his head and examined the giant Jutlander carefully. He moistened his lips, hawked, and once again began to speak.
‘No, Ironfist looks nothing like Odin,’ Ulf responded more steadily. ‘For one thing, Odin is taller and cleaner.’
‘Is there anything else you can recall, my friend?’ Luka urged.
‘I’ve scarcely heard Odin speak, although he is always in your shadow, my lord,’ Ulf said thoughtfully. ‘Ironfist seemed to be boasting and bragging while he was carrying out his treachery. And Odin seems so much more . . . substantial . . . so much larger, though I swear there’s only inches between them in size.’ Ulf paused, unable to clarify his thoughts any further. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord, but I lack the words to explain my meaning.’
Artor studied Ulf dispassionately. The king knew that Ulf was not a clever man, but he had discerned a serious flaw in Ironfist’s nature.
‘Perhaps our friend Ironfist is a man of straw, a shallow boaster who doesn’t think overmuch of the consequences of his actions,’ Artor mused. ‘I know I’d never have killed Gaheris, even if my own life depended on it.’
Ulf remained silent.
‘Did Gaheris die slowly?’ Artor asked. ‘You said the emissaries were hacked to pieces by Ironfist’s men.’
‘No, my king. Lord Gaheris, Cerdic and Cessus all died very quickly on the orders of Ironfist, or by his own hand.’
‘Why?’
Ulf looked blankly at his king and Artor stifled a flutter of impatience at the slowness of the Celt’s thought processes.
‘Why did these three men merit a merciful death?’ Artor tried again.
Ulf examined his feet, and his voice was a thin croak when he answered.
‘Cerdic was dispatched first. He was beheaded. His death was swift because Ironfist respected his courage in leading the emissaries. He refused to be cowed and he continued to hold the flag of truce to the end.’
Artor nodded his encouragement.
‘Cessus was the warrior who had hidden a knife in his boot. He stabbed the nearest Saxon through the eye.’
‘Ave, Cessus!’ Targo murmured, in approval of the warrior’s prudence in preparing for all eventualities.
‘And Lord Gaheris continued to goad Ironfist. He said repeatedly that the Saxons would not win because they wouldn’t change their ways. He ridiculed Ironfist, and it was almost as if he welcomed death as a consequence of his actions. He swore that you would take vengeance, and predicted Ironfist’s death.’
‘Thank you, good Ulf. ’ Artor smiled. ‘You may return to your comrades now.’
Still puzzled, and visibly upset, Ulf left the tent.
‘Ironfist cannot control his temper,’ Artor stated quietly, as Ulf was swallowed by the night and Gruffydd entered the tent. ‘It’s likely that he can be goaded into taking precipitate action.’
Targo nodded, amused, as he watched the wheels turning within Artor’s mind. ‘Now, that would be an edge . . . if we could play on it. We could manoeuvre him into a foolish mistake before he realizes that we have tricked him.’ Targo snickered wickedly.
‘Ironfist reaches very high when he claims the crown of Vortigern who was, when all is said and done, a Celt,’ Myrddion added. ‘Ironfist’s pride will work against him if we exert pressure on him. Perhaps we can lure him out of his fortress and cut his forces up piecemeal.’
Gruffydd stirred. He grinned at his king with the familiarity of a man who knows his master’s mind, for Gruffydd had stood at the king’s right hand for twelve years, bearing the sword of kingship.
‘You need my services in Ironfist’s fortress, my lord,’ he said. ‘And I was just getting comfortable, too. Nothing beats a good stew cooked by a warm wife.’ He spoke seriously, although his brown eyes danced with humour.
‘Tell me all that you’ve learned of the western Saxons during your travels,’ Artor said without the usual courtesies.
Gruffydd’s eyes immediately shadowed. ‘The Saxons of the east are an interesting people, as are the Jutlanders. I respect their tenacity as they carve out a life far from their own frozen homelands. But don’t ask me to speak well of the bastard Saxons of the southern mountains. They butchered my parents, and they made me a slave. I will bear their brand on my chest for the rest of my days.’ Gruffydd bared one freckled and heavily muscled shoulder and there, upon his right breast, was the outline of a spearhead that had burned deeply into the skin. The wounded flesh was white and puckered at the edges.
Myrddion winced visibly. The men in the tent were silent. Gruffydd drew a single, rather ragged breath, and answered as his king commanded.
‘The western Saxons have held parts of Cymru for a long, long time, certainly longer than I have lived. Vortigern welcomed them to these shores, and they have proved to be as stubborn as grass ticks, and near as impossible to dislodge.’
‘Are they true Saxons, like Katigern Oakheart?’ Luka asked. ‘Now there was a man to respect.’
‘No!’ Gruffydd snorted his scorn. ‘Even the bloodlines of Hengist’s brood were purer than the breeding of these barbarians. These Saxons have taken Celt women and interbred for several generations. In all that time, they have laid waste to everything that the tribes praised as good, burning the Sacred Groves to cook their meat, destroying the Roman forts that offered protection. They steal what they cannot grow, and kill what they cannot use.’
‘Charming.’ Myrddion expressed his contempt with a slight curl of his well-shaped lips.
‘Yet the very intermarriages that should have tied them to the land and made us stepbrothers elevated their pride in their ancestry to such arrogant proportions that they reject every concept that is not Saxon in origin. They are backward and ignorant, my lord. Prince Gaheris was accurate when he said that they will never learn.’
With a wry grimace, Gruffydd stroked his slave cicatrice through his woollen tunic. With the cadences of the natural storyteller in his voice, nuances that made even horrors into songs, Gruffydd continued to describe the western Saxons.
‘I was treated far worse than any dog. On many evenings, as a joke, I would be forced to fight the dogs for scraps of food from my master’s table, and I was barely nine years old. I learned how to hate as I cowered in the filthy straw at their feet, and at their whipping blocks. I have the scars, my lords, to remind me that life is precious and should be lived with joy.’
Gruffydd glanced at Artor, and those strange shark-like eyes bored into him. Artor wasn’t easily seduced by soporific imagery and phrases. He was searching for an edge.
‘They sing the ancient songs in their draughty halls, with only a hole in the roof to release the smoke, so grease covers every surface. All the nobility has been bred out of them, but not the hunger for blood, women and glory. Their ravenous desire for personal honour drives them to take stupid risks, while they consider all other peoples in the land barely human.
‘But only a fool would underestimate the western Saxons. Despite their appetite for violence and their casual wallowing in filth, they are consummate warriors. They hold to the old ways, the old gods, and the habits of another time and another land, no matter how senseless they might appear to our eyes. They will embrace a suicidal charge against their enemy for the sake of personal glory, and in the gory business of hand-to-hand combat their skills are exceptional.’
‘So we will be facing eight or nine hundred warriors who fight as a rabble, and not with a single fighting mind?’ Artor asked, his eyes very sharp in his weathered face. ‘I wonder, if personal honour is so important to Ironfist and his ilk, would they act rashly if they saw a chance to strike us in one single, killing blow?’
‘I have no knowledge of this Ironfist, Lord Artor, but the Saxons of the west simply turn on each other when they have no other enemies to fight. Any slight is paid for in blood.’ Gruffydd shrugged expressively. ‘Although they half starve in the long winters, they scorn agriculture and live for battle. After all, those warriors who were fools or inept are already long dead. Katigern Oakheart would applaud Ironfist’s fighting skills, yet deplore the primitive remnants of the past that the man represents.’
The silence fell heavily, and only the sound of the rain tapping on taut leather broke the eerie stillness.
‘My thanks, Gruffydd. You may go back to your warm bed and warmer wife with my good wishes. We should enjoy this brief period of rest, for we must be gone from Venta Silurum within seven days.’
Gruffydd bowed and disappeared into the night, whistling between his teeth.
‘How lovely. A race of killers that are full of piss and shite,’ Targo stated. He had a disconcerting habit of stabbing to the very heart of any problem. ‘Stupid men are just as difficult to defeat as clever ones, especially when they outnumber us and are prepared to fight to the last man. If necessary, they may even be able to starve us into failure. And Ironfist appears more intelligent, or at least better counselled, than the usual outlander.’
Discussion and planning for the operation then moved on to matters such as arms, food for the baggage train, fodder for the horses, and the order of march to Caer Fyrddin. Artor was confident that Caius could winkle a snail out of its shell, so provisioning the army was safe in his capable hands. Meanwhile, Myrddion’s spies were busy, watching the roads and blending into the Saxon villages. Llanwith was the supreme commander of the cavalry, second only to Artor.
And Targo? Well, Targo was in charge of sound common sense.
‘To bed, Artor,’ Targo advised with a wink. ‘There’s no sense in worrying yourself all night, trying to outguess a fool. You’ll find the edge - you always do.’
Once alone, Artor slept fitfully in his sleeping furs and, as predicted by Targo, his mind chased strategies round and round in a never-ending spiral. When he eventually dropped into the deep well of nothingness that he welcomed, he was attacked by strange visions of swords and crowns hanging in space, or spinning wildly until they became disembodied heads that smiled and spoke gibberish at him. But far worse for the shrunken inner self that was truly Artor was the shade of Gallia, striding out of the darkness, carrying a naked infant that stretched out its immature arms towards him. Artor’s shivering, inner self saw the dragon tattoo on the infant’s ankle and, as his gaze lifted, he recognized that the child was a boy.
He awoke in a lather of sweat, with a pounding heart and ragged breathing.
CHAPTER IV
MORGAUSE
In the heavy darkness that precedes the dawn, Artor decided that any attempt to return to sleep would be fruitless. His rest had been disturbed and his flesh felt hot and swollen within his skin. Around him, his leather tent felt like a dark carapace and he was a sweating, helpless moth, struggling to be born.
Just before first light, he rose, dressed and prepared his horse for an inspection of the bivouac. Behind him, Venta Silurum lay quiet and lightless, except for the occasional servant about his master’s business. Sentries bowed as he passed their positions, before resuming their solitary watches. The warriors were alarmed that the High King was abroad alone, but Artor paid them no mind.