M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon (28 page)

‘I spoke harshly because we nearly lost you
and
the hospital. If truth be told, I’m also very angry with myself. I’d happily lose a thousand hospitals before I’d see you hurt, Arthur. It never occurred to me that anything like this would happen, because the Saxons usually avoid night attacks and I would have expected them to consider such a strategy to be a slur on their honour. But as commander I should have taken precautions, especially when Germanus asked for an armed troop to carry out patrols around the hill. Let’s shake hands, Arthur, and we’ll say no more about our lapses.’

Flushed and embarrassed, Arthur shook his kinsman’s hand and swore allegiance with his whole heart, accepting the blame for what he had done at a time when most men would have been indignant or resentful at their treatment. Nor did he lose any honour by this free admission, for every man present knew that he would be a fine warrior and leader once he had learned to think before he acted. Secretly, Bedwyr’s heart swelled with pride when he thought of the level-headed courage his son had displayed.

‘Now get yourself off to the healers and have that arm seen to. I can tell from here that it’s broken, and the love-tap on it will need to be sewn together.’ Ector grinned like the boy he had been before care and responsibility started to create lines in his forehead at the grand old age of twenty-five.

‘You’ve collected a respectable number of scars, Arthur, but I’d prefer you didn’t try to collect any more,’ Bran added with more kindness than usual. ‘Tomorrow we bury our dead. If the Jutes wish to recover the bodies of their fallen comrades, as is their custom, they will pay for the privilege. As for the Saxons, their remains will be burned. I wouldn’t leave them to scavengers, even though they fight like animals.’

‘We ride the next day, son, so you must be ready to sit astride a horse,’ Bedwyr said baldly. ‘Can you do it? If need be, I can organise a place for you in a wagon.’

Arthur flinched at the idea and shook his head vehemently. ‘No, Father. I’ll return to Arden like a man – even if I’m not one yet.’ His final addition was accompanied by a rueful grin.

‘Good lad.’ As Arthur started to move towards the healers’ tent, Bedwyr stopped him with a quick tap on the uninjured shoulder. ‘Your birth father is swelling with pride in the lands beyond the shadows where the heroes dwell, for you are everything he would have wanted in a son. Although I’m not your sire, I’m unspeakably relieved that you’re relatively unhurt, Arthur. I’m so proud of your courage that I could burst. Don’t mind Ector’s harsh words. He was horrified by the thought of how easily you could have been killed and he over-reacted. When you are a man and a leader, try to remember this day and how you felt when Ector berated you. Don’t do it to anyone else.’

Then Bedwyr patted Arthur’s cheek and cleared his throat in embarrassment before stalking off, leaving his son to wipe away a sudden gush of tears.

Few men in the British camp took Ector’s jaundiced view of Arthur’s part in the Saxon attack. Germanus was the centre of attention as he filled a bowl of half-heated stew, composed mostly of horsemeat, and regaled his eager audience with his recollections of the battle.

‘I’d not say a word of praise to young Arthur’s face, him being in training and only a student of the sword, you understand?’ The listening warriors nodded their approval of such sensible treatment, for too much praise might go to the head of a stripling. ‘I’d also prefer that he doesn’t become too full of himself, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen many promising young warriors spoiled because they’re told how good they are before they’re ready to wear the mantle of hero. Damn me, but the boy was just so good.’

Once again, the audience of hard-bitten fighting men nodded in agreement, for soldiers understand the difficulties of training a lad with extraordinary talent, but they were curious to hear the whole tale of the battle on the hill.

‘How good was he, Germanus?’ a captain of cavalry, Selwyn of Glevum, asked eagerly. Normally, he gave Bedwyr’s mercenary a wide berth, having little trust in barbarians, especially those who fought for coin. But his opinion had changed, for by all accounts Germanus had killed four men on the crown of the hill and proved himself to be a warrior of distinction.

‘The boy predicted the Saxons would attack during the night some hours before it actually happened,’ Germanus began, but when he saw several men cross themselves he hastily amended his statement. The boy needed no taint of superstition to damage his relationship with warriors who could, one day, come under his command in a future conflict.

‘There was no magic – he saw a weakness in our defences and suggested to me that any Saxon who wanted to inflict major damage on us might attack the hospital. The boy is very sharp, so I had a word with the guard commander. He put five men on duty, purely to protect the healers. As it turned out, five men weren’t enough, but without them I wouldn’t be sitting here eating this slop.’

‘Don’t you be insulting my stew, Germanus. I guarantee you’ve eaten far worse in some of them heathen places you’ve been in. Iomhar ap Gwalchmal stands by his food, and I take exception to your rudeness. Now hand that plate back.’

‘Don’t be daft, Iomhar. I was only joking,’ Germanus apologised quickly. ‘The stew is fine and it’d be a pity to waste a dead horse. At any road, Arthur’s still a boy, and like all lads he couldn’t sleep after the excitement of the day. Old soldiers like us know better than to waste any time when we can be at rest, but this was his first battle.’

Germanus sighed, obviously reminiscing over the distant time when he too was a tyro in the arts of death. Respectfully, his audience permitted him his momentary return to his past, but cleared throats and impatient feet and hands soon indicated their eagerness to hear more. One enterprising young man filled Germanus’s cup with ale, which he drained with obvious satisfaction.

‘The first I knew of the attack was when I heard Arthur bellow the alarm. Damn me, but his voice is breaking young, and I remember thinking how odd the warning sounded. Then, when I was dressed and armed and came out of the tent, I was under attack immediately. The boy didn’t even have a shield or a helmet when they came at him.’

‘Heavens! He must have been crazy,’ Selwyn murmured. ‘I’ve got a lad of thirteen back in Glevum. He’s training as a blacksmith because I don’t want him dying young on the battlefield. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, but he’d panic for sure in such a situation.’

‘Young Arthur will be hearing from me about his failure to protect himself once his wounds are healed, because going into combat without a helmet is plain suicidal. Damn me, but he was daft. Still, he acquitted himself like a grown man.’ Germanus smiled. ‘I didn’t have time to see anything much of Arthur as those buggers charged over the crest of the hill, but I watched him kill the first man who reached him. Very neat it was too. He took out the bastard’s knee with that Dragon Knife of his before spitting him through the side with one stroke, just as I taught him to do. It was as good as you’d ever hope to see, and he didn’t even pause to watch his man fall.’

‘But he’s just thirteen!’ a voice exclaimed from the audience.

‘Aye, but he’s born for the warrior’s trade or I’m a granddam in my dotage,’ Germanus replied, ignoring several ribald comments as the listeners tried to imagine an old woman with bristling, greying moustaches.

‘I saw him,’ a bandaged warrior called from the edge of the audience. The man’s face was grey and he had obviously received a nasty sword cut across his ribs, sufficient to break several and cause considerable loss of blood, but no lasting hurt. ‘I was one of the guards . . . only two of us survived. I thank the gods that Arthur was alert, otherwise we’d all have been killed, including the thirty injured men in the hospital. Yes, I saw him with his amber hair spread out like a halo of blood in the light of the burning tent. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. For one moment there, it seemed as if the old Dragon King had come again to save us, just as he promised he would.’

Respectful room was made for the guardsman beside the fire and a comfortable stool was handed into the inner circle for him. The cook found another wooden bowl and filled it to the brim with more of his greasy horsemeat stew.

‘Eat well, good sir. You need the warmth, and the meat will help to replace your lost blood. Ignore this Frankish oaf – it’s very good.’

‘Thank you, cookie. I’m famished and tired, both at once, but I don’t believe I can sleep. Who would credit that the Saxons would attack at night?’

‘Perhaps they’re learning from us, or there’s a thane with a little more sense than most of his kind,’ Germanus muttered irritably. ‘Tell us what you saw of my boy. I’ll not comment on who his antecedents might have been, but he’s a natural warrior when it comes to his use of weapons. And he doesn’t show any strain when he’s under pressure.’

‘Not him! He took out his next man, a hulking brute who outmatched him in every way, breaking his sword in the encounter. I was helping our commander, only a boy himself, but a kinsman of the Deceangli king. My lad had taken an axe blow that came near to taking his arm off at the shoulder. I knew he couldn’t survive the wound so I dragged him out of the way in case I stepped on him. Your boy went down on his knees and attacked his opponent’s balls from below, being outmatched in strength, reach and weaponry. Ah, but it was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘He’ll sing castrato from now on.’ Selwyn offered his opinion with a black jest.

‘Only if he does it in hell. When the brute clutched at his ruined manhood, young Arthur severed his artery with that knife of his. It could have been made for him, for all it’s supposed to have belonged to the Dragon King.’

‘So rumour has it. The boy killed five men – even more than you, Germanus. You’ll need to keep your wits about you, old man, once the pupil starts to outstrip the master,’ Selwyn said with a laugh. His companions followed suit, all of them awed by the actions of the thirteen-year-old boy.

‘He’ll be a master when he reaches his full height,’ the wounded soldier decided, his voice firm with conviction. ‘I’ll happily serve under him if I should ever get the chance.’

‘Best of all, Fortuna loves him,’ Selwyn added. ‘He has luck, and a man can go far when luck is on his side. I’ve been told he killed his first Saxon at seven years of age.’

When Germanus agreed that there was some truth to the rumour the soldiers were even more impressed, especially when the Friesian explained the whole story, and whispers spread that the Dragon King had come again. The tale was spread with superstitious fascination.

‘Let’s hope Arthur’s luck continues.’ Germanus had the final word, as befitted his position as a trusted servant. ‘If the Saxons are learning new tricks, then we’ll need all the help we can get, even from such a capricious goddess as the Roman bitch with her fucking wheel.’

His companions agreed, and as a bloody dawn began to light the battlefield and the grim mounds of the fallen the men drifted away to carry out their various tasks. Birds came and roosted on every available tree, trusting that these men who worked so hard to rob them of the spoils of battle would overlook the odd corpse. Scavengers dined well when men went to war.

Germanus finished his stew, his mind wholly occupied by what his charge still needed to learn. He knew that the years ahead would be difficult, but as one of his old commanders had been fond of saying, lives of peace and harmony were usually very dull.

‘A little tedium might be a welcome change,’ Germanus muttered to no one in particular before wandering off to find Arthur in the tents of the healers. Another red day had begun.

CHAPTER IX

THE ROAD TO MANHOOD

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

John Milton,
Areopagitica
, 31

Unaware of his burgeoning reputation, Arthur lived uneventfully in Arden, his mornings dominated by the prosaic patterns of reading and writing followed by earnest discussions of the scrolls that Father Lorcan seemed to conjure up out of nowhere. During the long afternoons, Arthur was equally occupied with a tiring regimen of exercise, weapons practice and weights that drove him to his bed in a haze of exhaustion.

Lorcan had stumbled upon a ready accomplice in the development of Arthur’s mind, for the scrolls came from the library of Myrddion Merlinus in distant Caer Gai where they were personally selected by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. Permitted to take notes from these rare and valuable histories, Arthur was gaining an unexpected knowledge of rudimentary Roman surgery, herb lore, mapping, siege machines and Myrddion’s experiences as a physician in Rome, including symptoms and cures for the various plagues that spread throughout the known world from time to time. A normal lifespan was barely sufficient to learn a fraction of what Myrddion had accumulated during his seventy-odd years. Once studied, each scroll was swiftly returned to Caer Gai by one of Lorcan’s messengers. Another was despatched immediately, for Nimue gave unstintingly from the vast storehouse of knowledge that had become the record of her husband’s extraordinary life. With Nimue’s assistance, another Artor would learn and flourish from the ashes of Myrddion’s past.

‘I don’t understand all this talk of lead and defrutum,’ Arthur muttered after a puzzling morning spent poring over the great healer’s days in Rome. Arthur was already irritable, and the depth and breadth of Myrddion’s mind always made him feel inadequate. ‘Lead has been mined in the south of Britain for time beyond counting. How could such a useful metal be such a deadly poison when it’s so essential to our lives? Myrddion Merlinus must have been wrong.’

Father Lorcan thought for a moment. ‘Is lead truly essential? When do you use it? When does Bedwyr use it? I never heard of the Roman disease, as Merlinus names it. Other than iron and brass, lead is the most common metal used in the west because it’s so soft and malleable. My only knowledge of lead comes from my years in the lands of the Middle Sea where it’s used to make water pipes. Out of vanity, women in the Frankish lands use its powdered form to whiten their complexions. Didn’t Lady Nimue describe how Queen Wenhaver used a powder of fine stone talc and lead to keep her skin fresh and pale? Perhaps that powder explains the queen’s cruelties.’ Lorcan scratched his unshaven chin reflectively, his horny nails catching on several days’ growth of beard. ‘I know that Elayne swears by her precious iron pots and the fired clay bowls that she uses for cooking in hot coals. I haven’t seen any leaden materials used in Arden at all, not that I’ve really looked. However, I give some credit to the observations of Merlinus. Cases of his Roman disease still appear in places like Rome and Ravenna, although defrutum and sapa are rarely used any more. Perhaps that’s the reason why this terrible disease has declined.’