‘Bedwyr, you may join Gruffydd’s party once you have finished speaking to Myrddion. I assume you speak fluent Saxon?’
‘Like a native, my lord,’ Bedwyr answered drily, a little awed by Artor’s crisp grasp of the situation.
‘Myrddion, pick Bedwyr’s mind clean of everything of importance about the layout of Caer Fyrddin and its defences. You can also draw up battle plans for later consideration. The fortress will have to wait until we defeat its master. But once this battle is finished, I intend to attack Caer Fyrddin and burn it to the ground.’
‘Aye!’ a chorus of obedience rang out.
‘Now, tell me about Glamdring, Bedwyr. You were his slave, so you must know him better than most men. Can he defeat me? And, if so, how will he achieve his objective?’
‘He has more than eight hundred tried and tested warriors, my lord, plus a number of able men who have been recruited in recent weeks. You have a little over two hundred warriors here, if my estimates are correct. Would that be a true assessment?’
Artor nodded.
‘My opinion is that Glamdring cannot defeat you, for Wyrr is dead and the thane relied on him in every way. He’ll try to bludgeon you into submission by attacking in force, but his impetus will be fuelled by rage and the cruelty that multiplies within him, not by reason. The strength of his force will shake your camp to its foundations, and he will kill many of your warriors, but superstition will blind his eyes when he attempts to strike at your heart.’
‘Why?’ Artor asked softly. He was impressed with this new ally, a young warrior with a mind completely unbowed by unrelenting abuse that would have broken a lesser man.
‘The thane has placed all his trust in Wyrr’s prophecy regarding the Arden Knife. Wyrr had a vision that this knife would be Glamdring’s nemesis if he didn’t hold the weapon close to his breast. Neither Glamdring nor Wyrr seemed to remember that the Arden Knife was my property, and that it was copied from a sacred relic of my tribe. The knife that Wyrr described was taken from me when I was first captured by the Saxon warriors and it’s been in Glamdring’s possession ever since.’ Bedwyr smiled directly at his king. ‘However, what Glamdring and Wyrr didn’t understand was that the Arden Knife is not a physical weapon that can be held in the hands and used to kill or maim an enemy. I, Bedwyr ap Bedwyr, am the Arden Knife! I am the heir to the forests of Arden, and I was born to be its protector.’ Bedwyr’s face was stern and his eyes glittered. ‘And I, Bedwyr ap Bedwyr, will kill Glamdring before this campaign is completed.’
Momentarily, Artor regretted the softness that had been beaten out of this fine young man but, spoiled or not, Bedwyr was a particularly effective weapon that had come fortuitously into his armoury.
‘Then let us be about it. Killing weather is here, and the Saxons are coming to demand their share. Even the birds seem to know it.’ Artor smiled grimly at his assembled captains before turning to Luka. ‘Gawayne, Llanwith and Lot must return immediately to this command. Send two determined couriers by different routes to each troop with their orders. I need them to return at speed, for I expect their commands to have Glamdring’s force penned in within four days. Is that understood?’
There was no disagreement from Luka, or any further questioning from his audience.
‘Come then. Gaheris is watching from Hades, and our swords are thirsty for Saxon blood.’
The audience was over.
The camp boiled as the well-ordered machinery of Artor’s army prepared for battle, and Myrddion began to pick Bedwyr’s mind clean of his intimate knowledge of Caer Fyrddin. Then, at last, Bedwyr was free to find food and rest before he joined Gruffydd to hunt for Saxon archers in the hills.
‘Artor always plans many steps ahead, Bedwyr,’ Myrddion told him before he went. ‘It could be worth your while to watch and to learn from a master strategist.’
Night had fallen when Bedwyr joined Gruffydd and his small band of hunters as they slid into the trees beyond Artor’s camp. They were dressed in Saxon clothing to confuse the enemy if they were discovered.
‘We’re hunting for Saxons, Bedwyr. I trust you have the stomach for it.’ Gruffydd bared his breast so that Bedwyr could see the old scar in the dim light. Bedwyr realized that fate had drawn them together at this unpromising place so that both men could lay their years of slavery to rest.
‘It’s a very good night to die, brother,’ Bedwyr replied. ‘So let us be about our lord’s business. I am impatient to kill Saxons.’
‘Just be quiet about it,’ Gruffydd grinned wolfishly, ‘and you shall have your fill of them.’
The night swallowed the whole group, and no sound warned that midnight hunters were abroad. Only the owls marked their passing and, true to the Celtic goddess who ruled them, they did not warn the Saxons that death was abroad, and that it was eager for satiation.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RIVER WALL
Bedwyr waited, as still as a stone.
His patience was eventually rewarded by the noise of movement in a tree a hundred feet from him, more sensed than heard through the intervening distance. His acute night vision made out a dark, crouched figure that had appeared initially to be a bole in the thick trunk of the tree.
Bedwyr slid silently through the underbrush. Woodcraft had come back to him as naturally as breathing, so deeply was it ingrained in his nature.
At the foot of the tree, he rose to his full height. He could feel, and hear, an arrow notched and pointing at his breast.
‘I have a message from Glamdring. Can I come up the tree to you?’ he hissed in Saxon.
The man above remained silent. He was obviously confused and uncertain at the sudden appearance of a Saxon in these Celtic woods.
‘Ironfist is coming to join us in a short while. Let me climb,’ Bedwyr hissed with greater urgency.
‘Aye.’ The single word of agreement was sufficient to send Bedwyr clambering up the tree with all the agility of a boy.
The youth, who had wedged himself between three sturdy branches, was little more than seventeen years old. He was a peasant, judging by his rough woollen clothing and lack of ornamentation. When he saw Bedwyr’s Saxon clothing, the boy’s reservations disappeared, and the Celt felt a brief pang of guilt as he cut the lad’s unsuspecting throat, immediately after the boy had revealed the hiding place of the next bowman in the line.
Bedwyr carefully cleaned his knife on the boy’s cloak, wedged his body securely into the tree’s fork, and took the dead man’s bow and arrows before passing silently on to the next archer.
After he had killed three men, Bedwyr returned to the rendezvous point. His victims had been a boy and two ageing men, testament to Wyrr’s tactics of using unpromising or useless fighting resources to hide in the trees. Gruffydd and his men had also been busy, and had contrived to find another seven bowmen in the forest. Finding the Saxons had proved all too simple, and was almost too clinical to be sporting. But their bows were long and surprisingly sophisticated, begging the question as to why the Saxons did not use these devastating weapons more effectively.
‘The Saxon peasants use their longbows as hunting tools rather than fighting weapons,’ Gruffydd whispered to Bedwyr. ‘Its range is remarkable, but the Saxon chiefs seem to consider such weapons cowardly. We’re fortunate that Glamdring isn’t using a proper force of trained bowmen to guard the approaches to our defensive positions, for he could keep many of our warriors pinned down and ineffective with good archers, especially during daylight hours. And you, my friend, might not have been so lucky when you charged headlong into Artor’s encampment right under their noses.’
‘Those bastards almost caught me when Alun and I made that last dash for Artor’s camp,’ Bedwyr hissed. ‘Did you see how far we are from the shield wall? Those bows are a devastating weapon. The force and range of their arrows makes our weapons fit for small children.’
‘More to the point, Alun and the other couriers ride after moonrise. We have no time left to ensure that we’ve cleaned out these sodding trees.’ Gruffydd swore with an old soldier’s creativity. ‘If those riders don’t get through, then we’re sunk.’
‘I’m sure we found them all,’ Bedwyr whispered confidently but, none-the-less, he peered into the dark tree-tops with eyes that strained to catch the slightest movement.
Bedwyr had no sooner stopped speaking than a horseman burst out of the encampment at full gallop.
It was Alun, riding to deliver Artor’s summons to Gawayne.
As he passed a particularly thick copse of oaks, a bowstring sang and Alun slumped momentarily on the back of his horse. He clutched at his arm, snapped an invisible arrow shaft, and continued his headlong and dangerous passage through the darkness.
‘Shite!’ Gruffydd swore. ‘We’ve missed one of the bastards. Find him, Kennett, and don’t be tardy about it.’
He turned to Bedwyr.
‘Bedwyr, take our spoils back to camp and inform Artor that we will remain here to keep the trees clean of Saxons for as long as we can. Tell him that Garun has seen fires in the hills, so the arrival of the Saxons is imminent.’
‘Take care of your head, old man,’ Bedwyr answered with a grin, receiving a painful, affectionate cuff in response. He snaked away into the darkness.
‘That boy has a talent for the hunt,’ Gruffydd muttered to no one in particular.
Bedwyr was almost killed out of hand by a jumpy sentry as he slithered over a ditch and up into the no-man’s land that surrounded the Celtic force. Only quick talking, and the cluster of bows strung and carried over his shoulder, saved his head from a radical parting from his neck.
As he hurried towards Artor’s tent, Bedwyr detoured to the smaller, but more exotic, quarters of Pelles, captain of the archers.
Although Pelles had no aristocratic pretensions, he loved ostentation and had earned the right to indulge his tastes through the force of his talents and deeds. Bedwyr almost laughed outright at a leather tent liberally painted and dyed with humorous designs of griffins. Inside, his quarters boasted a gilded lamp that hung from the central support, a profusion of fine wine jugs, goblets, platters, furs and clothing chests that seemed incongruous encumbrances on a long campaign. However, in all fairness to Pelles, a folding table in the tent was laden with fine bows of different designs, feathers for fletching his arrows, and a small pile of arrowheads, all of which were shining and well-tended.
Pelles was still awake. A battle was looming and the old campaigner was busy reviewing the disposition of his archers and the complicated methods of ensuring that their quivers were well-supplied with arrows. Archers without weapons were so much dead wood in a battle.
Bedwyr marvelled at Pelles’s advanced age and his disreputable appearance. The old man had an impressive array of sword scars in addition to his blinded eye which, fortunately, was not the orb he used to aim his arrows. He was dressed in fine wool edged with cloth of gold, a garb that was more ostentatious than anything Bedwyr had seen on Artor’s tall frame. However, there was nothing clownish or laughable about Pelles, for all that he still carried the nickname of Pinhead. His years sat on him with a rich patina of experience, rather than age, and a rat-like intelligence shone out of his one brown eye.
‘So you’re the Celtic slave I’ve been hearing about,’ Pelles began with scant consideration for Bedwyr’s feelings. ‘I wouldn’t like to survive living with the Saxons for so long. You’re either a man of great patience, or you’re a coward. Which one is it?’
‘You be the judge, old man.’
Ignoring the sudden red haze of anger in Pelles’s eyes, Bedwyr dumped ten longbows and quivers of arrows on to Pelles’s folding table.
The bowman’s mood changed immediately. He stroked the exquisitely laminated wood of a bow that was fully five feet long.
‘The men who owned these bows are all dead,’ Bedwyr stated.
‘I’ve heard of these beauties,’ Pelles murmured. He rose to his feet, all thoughts of insult now forgotten. ‘They’re massive, damn near as tall as I am, and they must be a bugger to draw.’
‘I’m no bowman, I’m afraid, so I don’t know.’ Bedwyr shrugged. ‘But the archers we killed were all boys and old men, so you tell me how strong you must be to use them.’
Pelles drew back the gut string to its fullest extent and, for the first time, Bedwyr saw the half-glove on Pelles’s scarred hand and the fine leather arm guard that covered his whole lower arm from wrist to elbow.
‘Damnation, but this bow is lovely to hold. The range must be incredible. And the Saxons have these? Why in the name of Tartarus don’t they use them?’
‘The men I killed were peasants, so perhaps a Saxon warrior considers the use of a bow to be lacking in dignity,’ Bedwyr replied, amused by Pelles’s reverence for these sweetly-shaped yew weapons. ‘It would mean killing from a distance. With one of these you can’t get up close and sweaty.’
‘Then the Saxons are fools!’ Pelles whispered as he stroked the bow with the same affection that he would bestow on a beautiful woman. ‘I’ll have them - and gladly. Given time, every man in my ranks will carry such a bow. And they’re made of yew!’
Pelles was still caressing the bows, marvelling at their workmanship and muttering under his breath in excitement as Bedwyr backed out of his tent.
Artor was also awake, for a glint of light showed through the flap of his tent. As Bedwyr attempted to gain entrance, he was almost gutted by Odin. Artor was forced to call the giant Jutlander off the supine Bedwyr.
‘Gruffydd has ordered me to report that the woods are now clear of bowmen, but that cooking fires are burning on the nearest hills,’ Bedwyr said flatly, still a little awed by the speed and ferocity of the reaction of Artor’s bodyguard. ‘He’s convinced that Glamdring will be here within hours.’
A wizened old man in a Roman cuirass sat up sharply from a straw pallet in a corner of the tent.