CHAPTER I
BLOOD GUILT
Then all the councillors, together with that proud tyrant
Vortigern, the British king, were so blinded, that, as a
protection to their country, they sealed its doom by
inviting in among them (like wolves into the sheepfold),
the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God
and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations.
Gildas
Artor stood on the summit of the imposing earthworks of Cadbury Tor and stared down at his domain. Below him, like the peeled skin of an apple, the ramparts and cobbled roadways leading to the flagged fortress curled around the tor. Regular redoubts guarded heavy log gates that could be closed and barred to seal any enemy between its walls of wood and stone. If any fortress could be considered impregnable, then Cadbury was one such, for in its long history it had never fallen.
As he stared down at what he had rebuilt, Artor recalled his first, crucial campaign against the western Saxons twelve years earlier.
Older Celts still remembered, and resented, the foolishness of King Vortigern who had been so lost to reason that when the strong, golden legs of Rowena, his Saxon queen, were wrapped round his waist, he was prepared to accede to her every request. While in her thrall, Vortigern permitted the Saxons to settle in the lands of the Demetae, and for generations Celts and Saxons had dwelt together uneasily, until the Saxons had eventually sought to extend their power by forming an alliance with Katigern Oakheart in the east.
But, early in his reign, Artor had ridden north out of Cadbury and defeated the invaders at a time when he was still untried, both as a king and as a leader. For the first time, and in bloody attrition, Artor had used his cavalry against that most fearsome of barbarian tactics, the Saxon shield wall.
A double line of Saxons wedged their circular wooden, bull hide and bronze shields together in unconscious imitation of the old Roman tortoise. But the Saxons stood well over six feet in height, unlike the Romans who were rarely taller than five and a half feet. The second row protected the heads of the front row with their shields, and once the shield wall was engaged, the warriors refused to retreat, holding the line until every last man was dead. Like the ancient Spartans, the Saxons worshipped individual heroism and prowess in battle, but without the leaven of Spartan iron discipline. Wild for glory, Saxon warriors courted death and heroism, while the Romans had always been pragmatic, professional and sanguine fighters.
Artor had viewed the shield wall from a convenient rise in the ground above the forked Roman road near Magnis. He had sighed, anticipating the slaughter that it presaged. The Saxons were accustomed to absorbing the shock of fiercely attacking men, but Artor had changed the rules of engagement. The High King ordered his cavalry to pound the wall in wave after thundering wave of charging horseflesh. No man, no matter how large, can absorb the shock of a galloping horse. As the cavalry disengaged, Celtic spears were used to deadly effect to slaughter fallen men. Inevitably, many horses perished as the berserk Saxons risked everything to gut the animals, but the wall was weakened and eventually broke. The remaining Saxons fled into the inhospitable mountains. Through inexperience, Artor had mercifully permitted them to escape.
‘You’ll have to crush them sooner or later,’ Targo, his old sword master, had grunted as he cut the throat of a horse whose leg dangled at an unnatural, painful angle.
‘True,’ Artor replied philosophically, and stepped to one side to avoid the jet of arterial blood as the horse kicked convulsively, and then died. ‘But I must soon face a larger Saxon force in the east, and I don’t have the men to deal with enemies on two fronts. These curs will keep till a later time.’
‘You’ll not succeed with cavalry so easily again,’ Targo warned softly. ‘Still, I suppose there’s many ways to trap a rabbit, as my old sergeant used to say. They’ll continue to breed until they become a problem once again.’
‘Give over, Targo!’ Artor snapped, his eyes momentarily cold. Then he laughed ruefully. ‘I still lack the stomach for carnage.’
‘You’ll learn,’ Targo replied without a trace of humour or rancour in his cracked old voice.
Half-starved and ill-equipped, the Saxons had squabbled and skirmished on the rocky hills of Dyfed like parasites until an emerging new leader had bludgeoned them into a fragile unity, linked only by their old hatred for all things Celt - and for King Artor. Intolerant and obdurate, these warriors were born and bred as Saxons, not as Britons, regardless of their mixed bloodlines. They swore that they would never again retreat from their enemy.
After that first successful campaign, the war with the Saxons and the traitorous Celtic kings had raged for twelve long years. Now, all the Celtic tribes south of the great Roman Wall were united against a shared barbarian threat. Now, at Cadbury, Artor waited.
‘So many dead warriors, and all good men,’ Artor sighed. ‘Why was so much violence necessary? Reason and compromise could have saved hundreds - nay, thousands of lives. But compromise is another word for cowardice in the Saxon vocabulary.’
‘Talking to yourself again, Artor?’ Targo muttered, leaning upon a heavy staff. ‘When an ancient like me can sneak up on you, then you’re dead.’
‘Why do our conversations always hark back to my mortality?’ Artor smiled as he spoke. ‘How goes your day, Targo?’
‘Slowly, slowly. As it does for you, my lord. You still await news of your proposed truce from our envoys?’
‘The waiting tries my patience, Targo.’
‘Your attempts at peacemaking won’t work, my boy. You’ll receive your ambassadors back in little pieces, and the Saxons will believe that you’re growing soft and are too frightened to engage them in battle. I told you in times gone by that they’d breed to cause you trouble.’
Artor sighed with resignation. ‘Yes.’
The single word fell like a stone into a deep and very empty well.
Targo peered up into the younger man’s set face. Artor was no longer a beautiful young man and the light of excitement and pleasure had left his eyes. Something harder, more bitter and wounded had taken its place and Targo regretted the loss of the boy whom he had loved so well.
‘I imagine that it’s difficult to send good men to certain death. I wouldn’t fancy it, so I always served in the ranks. No responsibility - no guilt.’
‘I will not permit the latest of these Saxon thanes to endanger the west, and I’ll no longer ignore King Lot’s treason when he gives aid to the enemy. He’ll see sense and draw back behind the Roman Wall, or I’ll slaughter every warrior and camp follower that praises the Saxon might.’
‘Even King Lot?’
‘Especially King Lot.’
Artor’s words were bitter, and as rigid as a bar of iron. Yet Targo cherished this mature, hard and stern Artor as well as he had loved the boy, Artorex, for he gave his all to protect and guide his people.
To the north, beyond the apple and pear orchards, and the hamlets of conical huts with their thatched roofs, Artor saw the glitter of sunlight on horsemen. A small troop of cavalry was riding in haste towards Cadbury Tor, the light glinting off bronze and iron discs sewn on leather cuirasses. With the cold reason of his brain, Artor knew the answer to his silent plea already, although his heart prayed that his instincts were wrong.
Flanked by his body servants, Gruffydd, Odin and Targo, Artor watched and waited for the riders. The way leading up to Cadbury Tor took some time to negotiate, for it was an uphill journey through rich fields, orchards and pastures of fat-tailed sheep and contented cows. Civilization had sprung up under the protection of the fortress as peace and security promised a chance for a better way of life. In the shadow of the tor, village groups prospered, and life here was sweet-scented and deceptively peaceful. But soon the spring thaw would arrive and, with it, the months of killing weather as the Saxons moved out of their winter quarters.
‘This ordered way of life will last only as long as I continue to win,’ Artor stated cynically. ‘Those same warriors who now swear eternal devotion to my sword will kill me when my back is turned if, like Caesar, my luck doesn’t hold.’
Odin, his Jute bodyguard and one of the last of the Scum of Anderida, knelt on the flagstones, held his arms wide and looked up at his lord.
‘You are wrong, my king. Any of your warriors would die for you if you desired it. They’ll obey you without question, whether your orders are just or not. You are our master, but you are also the High King, and are above us and better than us. We obey out of love, my lord, so please don’t reject what we feel, even though your heart may be heavy.’ Odin spoke with a thick, guttural accent but twelve years of close contact with his king had remedied his language deficiencies. In fact, Odin now spoke with all the grace of his master, with simple and profound truth.
‘I’ve still got one last battle in me,’ Targo offered, ‘and the Saxon advance in the east is almost at a standstill. You aren’t responsible for their evils.’
‘No. I’m not.’ Artor’s response permitted no further discussion. He placed one hand gently against Odin’s face and the huge Jute rose to his feet, his eyes moist with unshed tears of devotion.
Targo patted his master’s shoulder, before moving carefully down the cobbled courtyard towards the great gateway. If he could intercept the horsemen on arrival, he could discover the Saxons’ work for himself. The report to Artor could then be softened to spare his master some of the consequences that were bound to result from this ill-advised mission. Thus, these two very different men struggled to shield their master from pain.
The small troop of cavalry drew closer and became visible as no more than a trio of warriors. Finally, as the first gates opened before the riders, Artor accepted that there would be no truce, for he could see the leather bags hanging limply across the front of each of the horse blankets. Men stepped aside as the three horsemen rode slowly through the narrow, earthen corridors to the second gate, and then the third. At each stage, warriors clutched amulets or crosses as the leather bags slapped odorously against the horses’ sides, and women turned away, their faces pale and nauseated by the putrid smell.
‘Hail, warrior! What name shall I give when I bring you before the High King?’ Targo asked as the riders negotiated the final gate and dismounted from their lathered horses.
One warrior stepped forward. His leathers were filthy with dried blood and mud, and his face was grey with exhaustion.
‘I am Ulf, from Caerlion, and I ride with Bryn ap Cydwyn and Justus of Aquae Sulis. We bear tidings from the Saxon war chief, Glamdring Ironfist.’ Ulf held his head high, although twin spots of colour stained the thin skin of his cheeks. He was alive, and he knew full well that any honourable man would now be dead.
‘We were ambushed in the hills north-west of Nidum while under a flag of truce. Without any warning, the Saxons slaughtered the emissaries and our brothers in the guard,’ he explained dully. ‘We alone were left alive to bear witness to the brutality of the leader of the Saxons. He gave us these “gifts” for the High King, and the filthy bastard forced us to swear that we would bring them to Cadbury Tor with his message for King Artor.’ Ulf grimaced, and his ashen face flushed with shame. ‘Lord Targo - for so I believe you to be - please beg the king to forgive the tongues that bring such arrogant words to insult him.’
The warriors were half fainting with exhaustion, yet still seemed determined to fulfil their obligations to the dead, so Targo gave them a grudging nod of respect.
‘Artor is a just ruler, you have nothing to fear from the High King as long as your hearts are truly loyal.’
Artor emerged from his dark reflections and strode towards the cluster of men at the gate. The horsemen abased themselves. With their foreheads pressed against the flagstones, the three warriors trembled guiltily, for they believed that the king would order their executions.
‘Rise, good sirs,’ Artor commanded the warriors. ‘It is I who should be kneeling before you, for I should be paying homage to those poor men and their servants who went so bravely to their deaths for the chance of forging a just peace. And to you courageous men who have ridden hard to bring home the remains of our heroes - for I can guess what your burdens contain.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ Ulf replied, as unacknowledged tears spilled over his lashes and ran unchecked down his cheeks. Yet neither Artor nor Targo considered that Ulf wept out of weakness, but for the dead, for the failure of his oaths and for his consuming guilt.
‘We lacked the heart to see friendly faces left in such ugly circumstances,’ Ulf continued, ‘so we stayed alive when honourable men would have preferred death to this dishonour. We chose to return the heads to you so that their kin should have some part of them. We couldn’t save the lives of our masters or our brothers, so it is fitting that we should be ordered to carry the heads back to their loved ones. Their bodies were left for the scavengers, and I now regret that we couldn’t lift our swords in their defence.’
A small group of women, some clutching children, had approached the gates. Targo knew at a glance that they were the kin of Artor’s emissaries, and he tried to spare them from the ugliness of what had happened to their loved ones.
‘Women, this is no place for you.’ Targo spoke gently. ‘We will send word to you when we know the fate of your young men.’
But Artor turned to the women, beckoned them forward and then, to their consternation, knelt on the cobblestones before them.
‘I may be king, but I beg your forgiveness, daughters of this good land. I knew the risks taken by your menfolk when they agreed to obey my orders. Mine is the blame for sending them into danger. You may hate me if you wish, but I confess that I would still order six more men to parley with the Saxons if there was any chance of bringing peace to the west. I regret that your sons or your husbands were victims of the viciousness of politics.’