Hollow Hills (45 page)

Uther's tent had been pitched on a little level lawn, before the ruined tower. As our troop rode towards it through the noise and bustle of the battalions assembling into fighting order, I saw men turn to stare, and even above the shouts of command and the clash of arms could hear the word go round. "It's Merlin.

Merlin. Merlin the prophet is here. Merlin is with us." Men turned, stared, shouted, and elation seemed to spread like a buzz through the field. A fellow with the device of Dyfed shouted as I passed, in my own tongue: "Are you with us then, Myrddin Emrys, braud, and have you seen the shooting star for us today?"

I called back, clearly, so that it could be heard: "Today it is a rising star. Watch for it, and the victory."

As I dismounted with Arthur and Ralf at the foot of the hill, and walked up to Uther's tent, I heard the word spread through the field with a rush like the wind racing over ripe corn.

It was a bright September day, full of sunlight. Outside the King's tent the Dragon blew, scarlet on yellow. I went straight in, with Arthur on my heels. The boy had armed himself at Galava, and looked at every point a young warrior. I had expected him to appear with Ector's blazon, but he carried no device, and his cloak and tunic were of plain white wool. "It's my colour," he had said, when he saw me looking.

"The white horse, the white hound, and I shall carry a white shield. Since I have no name, I shall write on it myself. My device will be my own, when I get it." I had said nothing, but I thought now, as the boy trod forward beside me across the King's tent, that if he had deliberately courted all men's eyes on the field of battle, he could not have done better. The unmarked white, and his air of eager and shining youth, stood out among the tossing brilliance of colour on that bright morning, as surely as if the trumpets had already proclaimed him prince. And as Uther greeted us, I could see the same thought in the eager and hungry gaze he fixed on the boy's face.

Myself, I was shocked at Uther's appearance. It bore out the reports I had had of him, of a man visibly failing, "as if a canker gnawed at his guts, not with pain but with daily wasting." He was thin and his colour was bad, and I noticed that from time to time his hand went to his chest, as if he found it hard to draw breath. He was splendidly dressed, with gold and jewels glinting on his armour; the stuff of his great cloak was gold, too, with scarlet dragons entwined. He held himself upright, kingly in the great chair. There was grey now in the reddish hair and beard, but his eyes were vivid and alive as ever, burning in their deep sockets. The thinness of his face made it look more hawk-like, and if possible more kingly than before.

The flashing gold and jewels and the great cloak hid the thinness of his body. Only the wrists and bony hands showed where the long wasting sickness had gnawed the flesh away.

Arthur waited behind me with Ralf as I went forward. Count Ector was there, near the King, along with Coel of Rheged, and Cador, and a dozen other of Uther's leaders whom I knew. I saw Ector eyeing Arthur with a kind of wonder. I did not see Lot anywhere.

Uther greeted me with a courtesy only thinly overlaying the eagerness below. It is possible that he had intended there and then to present his son to the commanders, but there was no time. Trumpets were sounding outside. Uther hesitated, looking indecisive, then he made a sign to Ector who stepped forward and formally presented Arthur to the King as his foster-son Emrys of Galava. Arthur, with this new quiet and self-contained maturity, knelt to kiss the King's hand. I saw Uther's hand close on his, and I thought he would speak then, but at that moment the trumpets shrilled again, nearer, and the door of the tent was pulled open. Arthur stood back. Uther — the effort was apparent — tore his eyes from the boy's face and gave the word. The commanders saluted hurriedly and dispersed to mount and gallop away to their stations. The ground shook to the trampling of horses, and the air to the shouting and the clash of metal.

Four men ran in with poles, and I saw then that Uther's chair was a kind of litter, a big carrying-chair, in which he could be borne onto the battlefield. Someone ran to him with his sword and put it into his hand, whispering as he did so, and the four fellows bent to the poles, waiting for the King's word.

I stood back. If any memory came to me of the young, tough commander who had fought so ably at his brother's side through all the early years of war, it touched me now with no feeling of pity or regret, as the King turned his head and smiled, the same fierce, eager smile that I knew. The years had dropped away from him. If it had not been for the litter, I could have sworn that he was a whole man. There was even colour in his cheeks, and his whole person glittered.

"My servant here tells me you have foretold us victory already?" He laughed, a young man's laugh, full and ringing. "Then you have indeed brought us today all that we could desire. Boy!"

Arthur, at the tent door speaking to Ector, stopped and looked back. The King beckoned. "Here. Stay by me."

Arthur flashed an enquiring look at his foster-father, then at me. I nodded. As the boy moved to obey the King I saw Ector make a sign to Ralf, and the latter moved quietly with Arthur to the left of the King's litter. Ector hung on his heel a moment in the tent doorway, but Uther was saying something to his son, and Arthur was bent to listen. The Count hitched his cloak over his shoulder, nodded abruptly to me, and went out. The trumpets sounded again, and then the sunshine and the shouting were all about us as the King's chair was carried out towards the waiting troops.

I did not follow it down the hillside, but stayed where I was, on the high ground beside the tent, while below me on the wide field the armies formed. I saw the King's chair set down, and the King himself stand to speak to the men. From this distance I could hear nothing of what was said, but when he turned and pointed to where I stood high in the sight of the whole army, I heard the shout of "Merlin!" again, and the cheers. There was an answering shout from the enemy, a yell of derision and defiance, and then the clamour of trumpets and the thunder of the horses drowned everything, and shook the day.

Beside the tower wall stood an ancient apple tree, its bark-now gnarled and thick with lichen like verdigris, but its boughs heavy with yellow fruit. In front of it was a tumble of stone with a plinth where perhaps there had once been an altar or a statue. I stepped up onto this, with my back to the laden apple tree, and watched the course of the fighting.

There was still no sign of Lot's banner. I beckoned a fellow running past — he was a medical orderly on his way to the dressing station lower down the hill — and asked him: "Lot of Lothian? Are his troops not come?"

"There's no sign of them yet, sir. I don't know why. Maybe they're to be held back as reserves on the right?"

I glanced where he was pointing. To the right of the field was the winding glimmer of a stream, flanked for some fifty paces to either hand by broken and sedgy ground. Beyond this the field rose through alder and willow and scrubby oak to thicker woodland. Between the trees the slope was rough and broken, but not too steep for horses, and the woods could well hide half an army. I thought I could see the glint of spear-heads through the thick of the trees. Lot, coming from the north-east, would have had early news of the Saxon advance, and would hardly have come late for the battle. He must be there, waiting and watching. But not, I was sure, by order as a reserve placed there by the King. The dilemma that Cador and I had spoken of might well be resolved today for Lot: if Uther looked like winning the victory, then Lot could throw his army in and share the time of triumph and its aftermath of reward and power; but if Colgrim should bear away the day, then Lot would have the chance of fixing his interest with the Saxon conquerors — in time, moreover, to deny his marriage with Morgian and take whatever power the new Saxon rule would offer him. I might well, I thought sourly, be doing the man an injustice, but my bones told me I was not. I wished there had been time to learn before the battle what Uther's dispositions had been. If Lot was anywhere at hand he would not miss this battle, of all battles, with the chances it held for him. I wondered how soon he would see me, or hear that I had come. And once he knew, he would have no doubt at all of the identity of the white-cloaked youth on the white horse, who fought so close on the King's left hand.

It was evident that the High King's presence, even in a litter, had cheered and fortified the British.

Though, borne as he was in his chair, he could not lead the charge, he was there with the Dragon above him, right in the center of the field, and, though the press of his followers round him would hardly let an enemy get within striking distance, the fighting was fiercest round the Dragon, and from time to time I saw the flutter of the golden cloak and the flash of the King's own sword. Out on the right rode the King of Rheged, flanked by Caw and at least three of his sons. Ector too was on the right, fighting with dogged ferocity, while Cador on the left showed all the dash and dazzle of the Celt on his day of luck. Arthur I knew to be endowed by nature with the qualities of both, but today he would doubtless be more than content with his position guarding the King's left side. Ralf, in his turn, held himself back to guard Arthur's. I watched the chestnut horse swerve and turn and rear, never more than a pace away from the white stallion's flank.

This way and that the battle went. Here a banner would go down, swamped apparently under the savage tide of attack, then somehow there would be a recovery, and the British would press forward under the swinging axes, and push back the yelling waves of Saxons. From time to time a solitary horseman — a messenger, it could be assumed — spurred off eastwards across the boggy land by the stream, and up into the trees. And now it was certain that Lot's force was there, hidden and waiting in the wood. And, as surely as if I had read his mind, I knew that he was waiting there by no orders from the King. Whatever calls for help those messengers brought to him, he would delay his coming until he saw how the day went. So, for two fierce hours, lengthening through midday to three, the British forces fought, deprived of what should have been their fresh fighting right. The King of Rheged fell wounded, and was carried back: his forces held their position, but it could be seen that they were wavering. And still the men of Lothian held back. Soon, if they did not come in, it might be too late.

All at once, it seemed that it was. There was a shout from the center, a shout of anger and despair.

There, in the thick of the press round the King's chair, I saw the Dragon standard waver, rock violently, then slope to its fall. Suddenly, for all the distance, it was as if I was there, close by the King's chair, seeing it all clearly. A body of Saxons, huge fair giants, some of them red with unfelt wounds, had rushed the group that surrounded the King, breaking it, it seemed, with sheer weight and ferocity. Some were cut down, some ' were forced back by desperate fighting, but two got through. They smashed their way forward, axes whirling, on the King's left. One axe struck the shaft of the standard, which splintered, rocked, and began to fall. The man who had carried it went down with the blood spouting from his severed wrist, and disappeared under the mashing hoofs. With scarcely a pause the axe wheeled through its bright arc towards the King. Uther was on his feet, his sword up to meet the axeman, but Ralf's sword whirled and bit, and the Saxon fell clear across the King's chair, his blood gushing out over the golden cloak. The King was pinned back under the fallen man's weight. The other Saxon rushed forward yelling.

Ralf, cursing, fought to thrust his horse between the helpless King and the new attacker, but the Saxon, towering above the British, brushed their weapons aside as a mad bull brushes the long grass, and charged forward. It seemed nothing could stop him reaching the King. I saw Arthur drive his horse forward, just as the rocking standard fell, striking the white stallion across the chest. The stallion reared, screaming. Arthur, holding the horse with his knees, seized the falling standard, and shouting flung it clear across the King's chair into a soldier's ready grip, then swung the screaming, striking horse right into the path of the giant Saxon. The great axe whirled into its flashing circle, and came down. The stallion swerved and leaped, and the blow missed, but glancing spent from the boy's sword, knocked it spinning from his hand. The stallion climbed high again, striking out with those killing forefeet, and the axeman's face vanished in a pash of bright blood. The white horse plunged back to the side of the King's chair and Arthur's hand went down to his dagger. Then quiet, but clear as a shout, the King called, "Here!" and flung his own sword, hilt first, into the air. Arthur's hand shot out and caught it by the hilt. I saw it catch the light. The white horse reared again. The standard was up, and streaming in the wind, scarlet on gold.

There was a great shout, spreading out from the center of the field where the white stallion, treading blood, leaped forward under the Dragon banner. Shouting, the men surged with him. I saw the standard-bearer hesitate fractionally, looking back at the King, but the King waved him forward, then lay back, smiling, in his chair.

And now, too late for whatever spectacular intervention Lot had intended, the Lothian troops swept down out of the woodland and swelled the ranks of the attacking British. But the day was already won.

There was no man there on the field who had not seen what happened. There, white on a white horse, the King's fighting spirit had leaped, it seemed, out of his failing body, and run ahead, like the spark on the tip of a fighting spear, straight to the heart of the Saxon forces.

Soon, as the Saxons, breaking from stand to fighting stand, were pressed gradually backwards towards the marshes that fringed the field, and the British followed them with steadily growing ferocity and triumph, men started to run in behind the fighting troops to bring out the hurt and the dying. Uther's chair, which should have been borne back at the same time, was forging forward steadily in Arthur's wake. But the main press of the fighting was no longer round it; that was well forward of the field where, under the Dragon, everyone could see the white stallion and the white cloak and the flashing blade of the King's sword.