Warrior of the West (6 page)

Slowly, stalwart men followed, both nobles and vassals, and the word raced through Cadbury and the villages like Greek fire.

‘We go to war.’

One day, the old Roman road would be called Fosse Way, a pedestrian and comforting name for something made for bloodletting. Built to facilitate the movement of men at war, the road stretched out ahead of Artor’s cavalry, straight and wide, over the gorse-covered slopes leading towards Aquae Sulis. Winter still clutched at the land, although the snow had gone, promising that the spring thaw was coming and the winds would soon blow warmer. A few shivering and naked aspens raised skeletal branches over the bare earth, while domestic animals turned their backs to the wind and grazed in places where the grasses of last autumn waved brown, withered fronds on the lee side of slow-rolling hills.

In disciplined ranks, the cavalry had ridden out of Cadbury Tor towards the north, and then camped at the highest point of the Roman road where the signal fires were lit. As the warriors hobbled their horses and erected simple hide tents, the lights of small fires were visible over the land like fireflies clustered around a larger, glowing blaze. The silvery sound of tinkling bells sounded through the twilight as the horses wandered to find what sweet grass might be found under the trees. Throughout the night, drawn by the signal fire, riders joined the main force in small groups.

Two days later, when Artor led his army out of bivouac astride the ancient Coal, his favourite horse, he did so with grim deliberation. Except for the dragon symbol on his shield and breastplate, he dressed carefully in the deepest sable. Peasants stared hard at the king and his similarly clad warriors as the army passed, and searched each face for a funereal sadness. They sought in vain. Rather than mourning, the army’s sombre clothing was the dress of inevitable death, so that under their dyed cowls and helmets, the warrior’s faces appeared to be leprous and skeletal in their whiteness. Even the afternoon sun was bone pale, as if it sensed that only the blood of many men would renew its vitality before the warmer months were done.

The baggage train was small for a force of several hundred men, excluding the horse handlers who moved a herd of spare mounts in the wake of the dark-robed cavalry. Later, a growing contingent of foot soldiers and archers from Ratae and Venonae swelled the force that pushed ever northwards, without making any attempt to disguise their movements.

‘I want Ironfist to be warned that I am coming for him,’ Artor told his captains. ‘And if human blood runs through his veins, he will begin to sweat under all his bravado. We will let him wait, with his nerves stretched taut, until we make camp on his soil. He made our emissaries suffer, so we will do the same to him. Imagination plays tricks on the bravest man, and when I am on his soil, Ironfist will know that I intend to exact my revenge. When we enter the Saxon lands, we will paint our faces in the old Pictish ways. Each man will wear the mark of a skull under his visor when we eventually meet up with Ironfist and his warriors. I want him to understand, irrevocably, that he is facing an army of the dead.’

Some of Artor’s captains were nonplussed by his plan that they should wear blue woad and white clay on their faces. ‘Does Artor admit to the possibility of failure before we strike even a single blow?’ some of the warriors whispered over their flickering campfires.

But Myrddion walked from fireside to fireside, explaining that their Saxon opponents were deeply superstitious men. They should suffer before they faced just retribution for their crimes.

‘Your king wants our warriors to mimic the wights of those men that Ironfist murdered,’ he said. ‘And he hopes that the Saxons will believe that those defenceless victims have returned and are multiplied a hundredfold. It is better that Ironfist is afraid, not us, for we are the death-bringers, and the harvesters of fear.’

Whenever he spoke, Myrddion gave heart to the most superstitious of men, so that the veterans came to think of the disguise as a great joke and a fitting tribute to the dead ambassadors.

When the growing army reached the outskirts of old Aquae Sulis, the population met them with exuberant joy. Broad, open fields on the banks of the river offered water and feed for the mounts and the baggage animals. Artor and his captains rode onward, through ever-broadening streets, until they reached the original Roman walls that encircled the administrative heart of the city. There, the chief magistrate and the city councillors awaited them.

The High King was greeted with due pomp and ceremony, for neither Artor nor the city dignitaries would countenance any lack in common courtesy. In fact, the chief magistrate, who had been woken from an afternoon nap by news of the king’s arrival, appreciated the honour that Artor offered by paying his respects to the city fathers before he made camp. Such small details, Artor knew, were crucial elements that firmly cemented his alliances with his subjects.

‘I welcome you, my lord,’ the magistrate, Drusus, intoned solemnly. ‘The city is yours to do with as you choose.’ His obeisance was low, but not subservient.

‘As always, it is a pleasure to rest at Aquae Sulis, for it reminds me of the joys of my youth,’ Artor responded as he warmly embraced the Romano-Celt. ‘My brother, Caius, will beg your assistance in the provisioning of my combined forces.’

‘Of course, Your Majesty.’ Drusus smiled, knowing that Artor’s war chests were always deep and that the king would never quibble over details of payment. ‘I will order our scribes to hold themselves ready to receive instructions from Lord Caius.’

‘My commissary will be hard at work long before dark,’ Caius said courteously with a low bow. ‘My thanks to the citizens of Aquae Sulis for the assistance that is always given to Lord Artor’s servants so willingly.’

The magistrate flushed at Caius’s fair words and Artor smiled with a certain element of sardonic humour that Caius was finally learning the value of flattery. His foster-brother’s smiles were far more effective than his tantrums, and he was a superb steward.

After all the courtesies had been completed, Artor and his captains rode back through the darkening, cobbled streets to rejoin their troops. Women bowed low over their baskets, while small children and young boys ran parallel with the horsemen, whooping and shouting excitedly like savages, but the welcome wasn’t as warm as in the Celtic towns. The king understood. The people of Aquae Sulis were Roman in their thinking and, although Artor had been raised in the ancient traditions, his amber hair and his great height marked him forever as a sympathetic stranger. And so he cherished the bowed heads of the citizens, for such respect held more worth for him than the wild homage of the more volatile tribes. Artor knew that Roman Britain would never fail him.

Aquae Sulis, queen of cities, Artor thought, as he dismounted and looked back in the direction from which he had come.

Situated on a branch of the old Roman road, Aquae Sulis seemed awash with a multitude of contrasting pastel colours in the light of the afternoon sun. In its soft, fertile lowlands, the city glowed with old stonework, jetting water fountains, and painted walls that brought rainbows to tangible life. The delicate mosaic floors that were intertwined with dolphins, sea creatures and brilliant, tessellated fish seduced those Celts who had never seen the wonders of a Roman city, or experienced the delights of a Roman bath. The complicated rituals of hygiene, which many Celts had adopted in the time of their Roman conquerors, came as a sybaritic delight to the novices.

The Celtic warriors weren’t excessively clean by habit. Britain was a cold country for the most part, and lacked the hot, sometimes steamy weather and disease-breeding humours of Rome. But the Roman invaders had prized personal hygiene, so public bathing was now enjoyed by all the citizens of the city. With oils to remove deeply ingrained grime, hot water to open the pores of the skin and cold water to close them, men and women could turn cleanliness into a luxurious experience. Wherever the Romans travelled in the world, they brought the notion of public bathing with them, along with the heated floors that were a by-product of the calidarium, so Roman towns such as Aquae Sulis, with its plentiful mineral springs, became thriving centres of sophistication.

The pleasures of Aquae Sulis were only possible because Artor determined to rest his men for twenty-four hours, ostensibly to replenish their rations. In reality, Artor wished to pay a short social visit to Ector, his foster-father, at the Villa Poppinidii where his life had once been so simple and peaceful. Besides, the very fibre of his being demanded that he should gaze once more upon the lovely face of Licia, his beautiful daughter, who was being raised by Ector. The child was ignorant of her noble connections, for Artor had made the hard choice to relinquish his daughter for her protection. Frith’s great-grandson, Gareth, was her sworn bodyguard, and only those trusted intimates who had known the king’s first wife knew Artor’s deepest and most closely guarded secret.

Artor had only to close his eyes and the faces of ancient, beloved Frith and his beautiful Gallia were there with him, faint and translucent with the passage of the years. Frith had fulfilled her oath to her dearly loved master, the boy Artorex, and died protecting his heavily pregnant wife. Regrets! Rage at his long dead father, Uther Pendragon, who had demanded their deaths, surfaced out of Artor’s repressed memories, with the same heat that he had felt before that old monster was dead.

So, once the captains had been briefed on the behaviour expected of their warriors during their sojourn in Aquae Sulis, Artor rode out of the camp in company with Caius and Targo. The High King left his staff in no doubt that any infringements of discipline by his warriors were to be punished without mercy. Artor always insisted that friendly cities, towns and villages should be treated with respect. His warriors knew better than to indulge in the soldiers’ pastimes of rape, robbery or violent drunkenness. The High King was a realist, he knew young men would always seek out prostitutes and drink if left to their own devices, but any public disturbance was punished brutally and expeditiously. Artor always paid for any damages with red gold, so the cities of the west greeted his arrival with pleasure.

A man is not always a hero in his home community, or so the Christian Bible warned Artor. Aquae Sulis was outwardly pleased that one of her sons had risen high in the world, and the young men of the city were eager to serve in his armies, but all the citizens who had known the youthful Artorex were either dead, ancient or already serving the High King at Cadbury. Those who might speak knowledgably of his youth, such as Ector, Julanna or the house servants at Villa Poppinidii, would never betray the boy and the man that they still loved.

The evening breeze was mild when the long and meandering road leading to the Villa Poppinidii loomed out of the dusk, leaving Artor feeling strangely displaced in time. On a number of occasions, many years before, he had watched with anticipation as the three travellers who had changed his life so unexpectedly had ridden up this same rutted track on their irregular visits.

Myrddion Merlinus, Llanwith pen Bryn and Luka, Uther’s chief courtier and two nobles, had arrived unheralded at the Villa Poppinidii when Artor was a twelve-year-old boy. The High King sighed. The three men had changed his life, honed him to become a weapon against the barbarians, and then they had torn him away from everything he had known and loved. Had he ever really mattered as a person of flesh, blood and spirit? Or was his birth, his physical strength and his potential as a High King all that the three travellers desired?

On reflection, Artor decided that the three travellers had known what they were doing to him, and were willing to pay any price. He was tangible proof that hope still lived in the Celtic breast, and that the west need not burn behind the Saxon marauders.

Now, he was visiting the villa on his own mission of hope.

As the party reached the villa gates, they spied a tall young girl with amber hair as she ran towards the villa doors to alert the house of the arrival of visitors.

That must be Licia, Artorex thought to himself in amazement at the many inches of growth that had taken place since he had last seen her.

Ector came shuffling to the door of the villa, followed by the house servants who bowed so low that their heads all but touched the ground. Ector attempted to kneel, an effort that caused his swollen knee joints to creak painfully. His old blue eyes were filmed with cataracts and fresh tears as he recognized Caius, his son, in the company of the king.

Dismounting, Artor clasped the old man to his breast.

‘You need not bow to me, Father. Nor should you ever be on your knees. I do not expect you to carry out such empty gestures.’

‘They’re not empty to me,’ Ector replied simply, with his head held high. ‘I am a Celt, and you are my king.’

A hot, red flush began at Artor’s throat until it reached his cheekbones. Unwittingly, he had offended the proud old man, and he was deeply ashamed of his shallow courtesy. Kings learn to flatter without thinking, a habit that Artor had adopted all too easily.

‘By the gods, Artor, you’re blushing,’ exclaimed Ector. ‘Who’d have thought that you could still colour up like a callow youth?’

Immediately, Artor felt sixteen again, ignorant and awkward.

As usual, Targo leavened the embarrassment of the moment by simply clapping Ector on the back, quite forgetting that he had once been a servant of the house.

‘The lad will never feel like a king at the Villa Poppinidii, Sir Ector. You knew him when he was a great lump of a lad, all elbows and knees, with his head in the clouds and wearing a dirty tunic.’

‘Licia takes after him then, for she is of similar appearance, although she is a sweet little thing.’ Ector sighed gustily. ‘And Caius. My son. I am so proud that you ride with the High King, my boy - and that you are his steward. Come, let me embrace you.’