Page 46 of Warrior Queen
He took a mouthful of wine and scowled. “Just before Cadman rode south to Din Cadan, a whole host of them– a proper army, not just a raiding party– marched inland from the coast. They’d beached their ships near the ruined fort of Praesidium, unopposed, then disembarked and headed this way, leaving a trail of destruction a mile wide behind them, across my richest farmlands.”
Was he more worried about his farmlands than his people? I took a swallow of wine to wash down my food.
He shook his shaggy head in what could have been despair. “I’ve had the same problem all along the length of my coastline. My forces have to be divided. One son rode north toward the moors, the other south to the Humber estuary, chasing bloody will o’ the wisps and phantoms. As soon as we had news of this mass landing, I sent out my fastest messengers. My two armies came racing back. We were lucky. They engaged the enemy some eight miles east of the city where an old stone bridge crosses the River Derwent. Only thanks to the narrowness of the bridge did my son succeed in holding them back until both of their armies had united. But they were still outnumbered.”
“What happened?” Arthur kept his eyes fixed on Coel’s face.
Coel’s broad shoulders sagged. “Defeat.” He shook his shaggy head. “One son wisely chose to turn tail and run for it, outnumbered and outmanned, to live to fight another day. His brother was killed. Not my heir– a younger son.”
For a moment, his eyes clouded, perhaps thinking of the son he’d lost.
Then he rubbed his forehead. “The Yellow Hairs are fierce warriors. My men are brave, but were driven back when the Yellow Hairs waded the river. The only thing my surviving son could do was urge his men to flee, on horseback, faster than the Saxons could follow. If he hadn’t, his army would have been decimated. And it’d be the Yellow Hair chieftain sitting in this chamber, holding Ebrauc.”
His voice cracked. “I lost a son, but I wasn’t the only one to suffer such a loss. Many families in this city and from the farms outside our walls have lost a husband, a son or a brother. Some have lost their entire farms and have fled here to Ebrauc for safety, cramming their families in wherever they can find a space. We’re full to bursting with refugees.” He shook his shaggy head. “Those heathen Yellow Hairs want this land. They’ll not give up until we drive them off it.” He paused. “Or until they drive us off so they can keep it for themselves.”
I swallowed. This was something the people of every kingdom had to cope with on an almost daily basis– the threat of losing their loved ones in battle, or just in raids. The threat of having their homes burned to the ground around them and their lands stolen. I studied Arthur’s somber face, my food forgotten.
“And since?” he asked.
Coel visibly drew himself up straight. “I sent Cadman and his fellows south to find you. They volunteered, despite their age and afflictions.” A small smile touched his lips. “And I well know whatthatentails. They’re all of them younger than me. Boys when I was already a man grown.”
“And now?”
“Since they returned, we’ve had a lull in the raiding. But it’s before the storm to come. The enemy’s numbers have swelled with ever more keels landing to reinforce them. I have spies out, watching. The Yellow Hairs have been raiding the farms that abut the coast, knowing there’s little we can do to stop them. We never know where they’ll strike next. I’ve sent patrols out every day, led by my sons and generals. When they’ve come across small bands of the invaders, they’ve been able to put them to flight, inflicting heavy losses. But we daily live in fear that they’ll turn up outside our walls.” He gave a bitter laugh. “No legion here any longer to defend us.”
Wait. There’d been a legion stationedhere?
I struggled to remember what my father had told me about York, about the cities that had hosted legions. Only three– Chester, on the border with North Wales, Caerleon– our Caer Legeion gwar Uisc in South Wales, and… a third… York. Of course. One of Arthur’s twelve battles as recorded by that obscure monk Nennius in the early ninth century had been the enigmatic Battle of the City of the Legion. Thought to be one of the easier to locate of the battles. However, scholars had long argued about whether it meant Caerleon, whose very name means “city of the legion” or Chester. Most had dismissed York as unlikely, if not impossible.
And yet here we were, barely a stone’s throw from the Saxon Shore, with Saxons threatening attack at any moment. Thishadto be the City of the Legion Nennius meant. It had to. All those scholars were wrong.
“I’ll send out patrols of my own men to the coast, and maybe attack them there,” Arthur said. “I’ll need to speak with your scouts in the morning. We need to work out what the Saxons could be planning.”
I cleared my throat. “They’re coming here.”
Two heads swiveled to stare at me. Faded blue eyes and bright young dark ones.
“What?” Arthur said.
I stared him in the eye. “They’re coming. Don’t ask me how I know because I can’t tell you. But they are. There’ll be a huge battle right here. You mark my words.”
Coel’s eyes narrowed, almost sinking into the folds of spare skin around them. “No one told me the Ring Maiden had the Sight.”
I opened my mouth to say I didn’t, then shut it with a snap, without speaking. Let him think that if he wanted to. Easier by far than revealing how I felt so certain about this battle. How lucky they all believed in magic.
Arthur’s eyebrows had shot up, and his tongue darted out to lick his lips, but he too stayed silent. He was going to want to know how I’d come by this knowledge– not being a great believer in magic himself.
Coel nodded his head. “She’s seen it. We will wait here for them to come to us. And we will fight them.”
*
“Why did yousay that?” Arthur asked, as the door to our opulent bed chamber closed behind us, shutting out the darkness of the courtyard. He caught hold of my arm and pulled me around, staring down into my eyes. “You know something. What is it? Tell me.”
How right I’d been about his reaction to my prediction.
But oh, how I longed to share my knowledge with someone. And how I longed to be wrong. If I was right, this battle would be a victory, but with every incident that came true, Camlann loomed ever closer and more real. But I couldn’t tell him. Instead, I had to find a lie to prove my words. “The Sight,” I said, my heart beating hard and fast. “Sometimes I’m given a flash of foresight. I had one of those tonight.”
His eyes narrowed, his fingers digging into my arm. “That’s not it.” He wasn’t stupid. “I know when you’re not telling me the truth. You no more have the Sight than I do.” He paused. “Did Merlin tell you this? Has he seen something?”
