Our horses, weapons and shields were brought to us and
Gorfyddyd himself walked us to Caer Sws's gate. Cuneglas, his son, came also; he might well have intended a courtesy by accompanying us, but Gorfyddyd had no such niceties in mind. "Tell your whore-lover," the King said, his cheeks still smeared with blood, 'that war can be avoided by one thing only. Tell Arthur that if he presents himself in Lugg Vale for my judgment and verdict I shall consider the stain on my daughter's honour cleansed."
"I shall tell him, Lord King," Galahad answered.
"Is Arthur still beardless?" Gorfyddyd asked, making the question sound like an insult.
"He is, Lord King," Galahad said.
"Then I can't plait a prisoner's leash from his beard," Gorfyddyd growled, 'so tell him to cut off his whore's red hair before he comes and have it woven ready for his own leash." Gorfyddyd clearly enjoyed demanding that humiliation of his enemies, though Prince Cuneglas's face betrayed an acute embarrassment for his father's crudeness. "Tell him that, Galahad of Benoic," Gorfyddyd continued, 'and tell him that if he obeys me, then his shaven whore can go free so long as she leaves Britain."
"The Princess Guinevere can go free," Galahad restated the offer.
"The whore!" Gorfyddyd shouted. "I lay with her often enough, so I should know. Tell Arthur that!" He spat the demand into Galahad's face. "Tell him she came to my bed willingly, and to other beds too!"
"I shall tell him," Galahad lied to stem the bitter words. "And what, Lord King," Galahad went on, 'of Mordred?"
"Without Arthur," Gorfyddyd said, "Mordred will need a new protector. I shall take responsibility for Mordred's future. Now go."
We bowed, we mounted and we rode away, and I looked back once in hope of seeing Ceinwyn, but only men showed on Caer Sws's ramparts. All around the fortress the shelters were being pulled down as men prepared to march on the direct road to Branogenium. We had agreed not to use that road, but to go home the longer way through Caer Lud so we would not be able to spy on Gorfyddyd's gathering host.
Galahad looked grim as we rode eastwards, but I could not restrain my happiness and once we had ridden clear of the busy encampments I began to sing the Song of Rhiannon.
"What is the matter with you?" Galahad asked irritably.
"Nothing. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" I shouted in joy and kicked back my heels so that the horse bolted down the green path and I fell into a patch of nettles. "Nothing at all," I said when Galahad brought the horse back to me. "Absolutely nothing."
"You're mad, my friend."
"You're right," I said as I clambered awkwardly back on to the horse. I was indeed mad, but I was not going to tell Galahad the reason for my madness, so for a time I tried to behave soberly. "What do we tell Arthur?" I asked him.
"Nothing about Guinevere," Galahad said firmly. "Besides, Gorfyd-dyd was lying. My God! How could he tell such lies about Guinevere?"
"To provoke us, of course," I said. "But what do we tell Arthur about Mordred?"
"The truth. Mordred is safe."
"But if Gorfyddyd lied about Guinevere," I said, 'why shouldn't he lie about Mordred? And Merlin didn't believe him."
"We weren't sent for Merlin's answer," Galahad said.
"We were sent to find the truth, my friend, and I say Merlin spoke it."
"But Tewdric," Galahad answered firmly, 'will believe Gorfyddyd."
"Which means Arthur has lost," I said bleakly, but I did not want to talk about defeat, so instead I asked Galahad what he had thought of Ceinwyn. I was letting the madness take hold of me again and I wanted to hear Galahad praise her and say she was the most beautiful creature between the seas and the mountains, but he simply shrugged. "A neat little thing," he said carelessly, 'and pretty enough if you like those frail-looking girls." He paused, thinking. "Lancelot will like her," he went on. "You do know Arthur wants them to marry? Though I don't suppose that will happen now. I suspect Gundleus's throne is safe and Lancelot will have to look elsewhere for a wife."
I said nothing more about Ceinwyn. We rode back the way we had come and reached Magnis on the second night where, just as Galahad had predicted, Tewdric put his faith in Gorfyddyd's promise while Arthur preferred to believe Merlin. Gorfyddyd, I realized, had used us to separate Tewdric and Arthur, and it seemed to me that Gorfyddyd had done well, for as we listened to the two men wrangle in Tewdric's quarters it was plain that the King of Gwent had no stomach for the coming war. Galahad and I left the two men arguing while we walked on Magnis's ramparts that were formed by a great earthen wall flanked by a flooded ditch and topped with a stout palisade. "Tewdric will win the argument," Galahad told me bleakly. "He doesn't trust Arthur, you see."
"Of course he does," I protested.
Galahad shook his head. "He knows Arthur's an honest man," he allowed, 'but Arthur's also an adventurer. He's landless, have you ever thought of that? He defends a reputation, not property. He holds his rank because of Mordred's age, not through his own birth. For Arthur to succeed he must be bolder than other men, but Tewdric doesn't want boldness right now. He wants security. He'll accept Gorfyddyd's offer." He was silent for a while. "Maybe our fate is to be wandering warriors," he continued gloomily, 'deprived of land, and always being driven back towards the Western Sea by new enemies."
I shivered and drew my cloak tighter. The night was clouding over and bringing a chill promise of rain on the western wind. "You're saying Tewdric will desert us?"
"He already has," Galahad said bluntly. "His only problem now is getting rid of Arthur gracefully. Tewdric has too much to lose and he won't take risks any more, but Arthur has nothing to lose except his hopes."
"You two!" A loud voice called us from behind and we turned to see Culhwch hurrying along the ramparts. "Arthur wants you."
"For what?" Galahad asked.
"What do you think, Lord Prince? He's lacking for throw board players?" Culhwch grinned. "These bastards may not have the belly for a fight' he gestured towards the fort that was thronged with Tewdric's neatly uniformed men 'but we have. I suspect we're going to attack all on our own." He saw our surprise and laughed. "You heard Lord Agricola the other night. Two hundred men can hold Lugg Vale against an army. Well? We've got two hundred spearmen and Gorfyddyd possesses an army, so why do we need anyone from Gwent? Time to feed the ravens!"
The first rain fell, hissing in the smithy fires, and it seemed we were going to war.
I sometimes think that was Arthur's bravest decision. God knows he took other decisions in circumstances just as desperate, but never was Arthur weaker than on that rainy night in Magnis where
Tewdric was drawing up patient orders that would withdraw his forward men back to the Roman walls in preparation for a truce between Gwent and the enemy.
Arthur gathered five of us in a soldier's house close to those walls. The rain seethed on the roof while under the thatch a log fire smoked to light us with a lurid glare. Sagramor, Arthur's most trusted commander, sat beside Morfans on the hut's small bench, Culhwch, Galahad and I squatted on the floor while Arthur talked.
Prince Meurig, Arthur allowed, had spoken an uncomfortable truth, for the war was indeed of his own making. If he had not spurned Ceinwyn there would be no enmity between Powys and Dumnonia. Gwent was involved by being Powys's most ancient enemy and Dumnonia's traditional friend, but it was not in Gwent's interest to continue the war. "If I had not come to Britain," Arthur said, 'then King Tewdric would not be foreseeing the rape of his land. This is my war and, just as I began it, so I must end it." He paused. He was a man to whom emotion came easily, and he was, at that moment, overcome with feeling. "I am going to Lugg Vale tomorrow," he finally spoke and for a dreadful second I thought he meant to give himself up to Gorfyddyd's awful revenge, but then Arthur offered us his open generous smile, 'and I would like it if you came with me, but I have no right to demand it."
There was silence in the room. I suppose we were all thinking that the fight in the vale had seemed a risky prospect when the combined armies of Gwent and Dumnonia were to be employed, but how were we to win with only Dumnonia's men? "You have a right to demand that we come," Culhwch broke the silence, 'for we took oaths to serve you."
"I release you from those oaths," Arthur said, 'asking only that if you live you stand by my promise to see Mordred grow into our King."
There was silence again. None of us, I think, wavered in our loyalty, but nor did we know how to express it until Galahad spoke. "I swore you no oath," he said to Arthur, 'but I do now. Where you fight, Lord, I fight, and he who is your enemy is mine, and he who is your friend is my friend also. I swear that on the precious blood of the living Christ." He leaned forward, took Arthur's hand and kissed it. "May my life be forfeit if I break my word."
"It takes two to make an oath," Culhwch said. "You might release me, Lord, but I don't release myself."
"Nor I, Lord," I added.
Sagramor looked bored. "I'm your man," he said to Arthur, 'no one else's."
"Bugger the oath," ugly Morfans said, "I want to fight."
Arthur had tears in his eyes. For a time he could not speak, so instead he busied himself ramming at the fire with a log until he had succeeded in halving its warmth and doubling its smoke. "Your men are not oath-bound," he said thickly, 'and I want none but willing men in Lugg Vale tomorrow."
"Why tomorrow?" Culhwch asked. "Why not the day after? The more time we have to prepare, the better, surely?"
Arthur shook his head. "We'll be no better prepared if we wait a whole year. Besides, Gorfyddyd's spies will already be going north with news that Tewdric is accepting Gorfyddyd's terms, so we must attack before those same spies discover that we Dumnonians have not retreated. We attack at dawn tomorrow." He looked at me. "You will attack first, Lord Derfel, so tonight you must reach your men and talk to them, and if they prove unwilling, then so be it, but if they are willing then Morfans can tell you what they must do."
Morfans had ridden the whole enemy line, flaunting himself in Arthur's armour but also reconnoitring the enemy positions. Now he took handfuls of grain from a pot and piled them on his outspread cloak to make a rough model of Lugg Vale. "It's not a long valley," he said, 'but the sides are steep. The barricade is here at the southern end." He pointed to a spot just inside the modelled valley. "They felled trees and made a fence. It's big enough to stop a horse, but it won't take long for a few men to haul those trees aside. Their weakness is here." He indicated the western hill. "It's steep at the northern end of the valley, but where they built their barricade you can easily run down that slope. Climb the hill in the dark and in the dawn you attack downhill and dismantle their tree fence while they're still waking up. Then the horses can come through." He grinned, relishing the thought of surprising the enemy.
"Your men are used to marching by night," Arthur told me, 'so at dawn tomorrow you take the barricade, destroy it, then hold the vale long enough for our horse to arrive. After the horse our spearmen will come. Sagramor will command the spearmen in the vale while I and fifty horsemen attack Branogenium." Sagramor showed no reaction to the announcement which gave him command of most of Arthur's army.
The rest of us could not hide our astonishment, not at Sagramor's appointment, but at Arthur's tactics. "Fifty horsemen attacking Gorfyddyd's whole army?" Galahad asked dubiously.
"We won't capture Branogenium," Arthur admitted, 'we may not even get close, but we shall stir them into a pursuit and that pursuit will bring them down to the vale. Sagramor will meet that pursuit at the vale's northern end, where the road fords the river, and when they attack, you retreat." He looked at us in turn, making sure we understood his instructions. "Retreat," he said again, 'always retreat. Let them think they win! And when you have sucked them deep into the valley, I shall attack."
"From where?" I asked.
"From behind, of course!" Arthur, energized by the prospect of battle, had regained all his enthusiasm. "When my horsemen retreat from Branogenium we won't go back into the vale, but hide outside its northern end. The place is smothered in trees. And once you've sucked the enemy in, we'll come from their rear."
Sagramor stared at the piles of grain. "The Blackshield Irish at Coel's Hill," he said in his execrable accent, 'can march south of the hills to take us in the rear," he pushed a finger through the scattered grains at the Vale's southern end to show what he meant. Those Irish, we all knew, were the fearsome warriors of Oengus Mac Airem, King of Demetia, who had been our ally until Gorfyddyd had changed his loyalty with gold. "You want us to hold an army in front and the Blackshields behind?" Sagramor asked.
"You see," Arthur said with a smile, 'why I offer to release you from your oaths. But once Tewdric knows we're embattled, he'll come. As the day passes, Sagramor, you will find your shield-line thickening by the minute. Tewdric's men will deal with the enemy from Goel's Hill."
