Page 37 of The Quest for Excalibur
I glanced at Arthur’s back. “When Medraut’s like this, acting like any other boy, I suppose that’s true.”
Merlin pulled a rueful face. “Only we know it’s not, don’t we?”
I peered over my shoulder again. Cahal had regained his helmet and stuck it on his head where he probably thought it safe, and Medraut was holding forth in a loud voice as his friends hung on his words, their eyes full of admiration. Only Cahal’s held a hint of resentment. “We certainly do.”
*
Well past mid-day,we spotted the hill of Dinas Brent. It rose steeply out of the flat western horizon, the only hill between us and the sea, surrounded by its own midge-ridden sea of marshland. Small, at first, and probably still four or five miles distant, it slowly grew larger and rose higher as we approached.
Farmland clung to the lower slopes of the hill. Twelve years ago, Arthur’s men had put every building to the torch in a fit of furious, long-simmered vengeance, but the people must have come creeping back. Small, reed-thatched huts clustered the lowest land, just above the edge of the marsh, and sheep grazed the steep hillside. From the top, a thin column of smoke rose into the warm summer air.
The people working in the fields, rightly wary, spotted us from afar, and, like ants, hurried to cluster together, clutching their hoes and wooden staves, their children hiding behind their legs, as though their action might protect them if we meant them harm.
We crossed the raised causeway through the marsh under their hostile, frightened gaze, the sound of their children’s crying carrying to us on the light breeze. Were they the same people Arthur had thrown out when he’d burned Melwas’s hall to ashes? Or had a different group of people come to repopulate the lonely hill? By the look of them, they knew who Arthur was and didn’t much care for him.
Yet, technically, they were his people. The thought that some of his subjects didn’t like him seemed strange. But if you were a poor peasant toiling on your little patch of land, what good wouldanyking be to you? Would you care if one fell and another took his place? Probably not. You’d see them as all the same– living off tribute from your hard toil in their fine halls, while you grubbed about in the dirt and lived hand-to-mouth.
“Look at their faces,” Medraut’s loud, sneering voice carried to me over the rattle of bits and chainmail. “Dirty peasants, the lot of them. I wonder if there are any decent girls amongst them.”
Iestyn laughed every bit as nastily. “I’m having that one over there. See her peeking over that wall. She’s not so dirty as the rest.”
More laughter. They were teenage boys, after all, so was it little wonder they looked at girls this way? But nevertheless, my skin crawled at the way they’d said this.
My hands tightened on Alezan’s reins. Mixing with older boys couldn’t be good for Medraut, not if it was giving him this attitude to women at such an early age. Most of it would be bravado, but the way they’d spoken had left a bad taste in my mouth.
I glanced back at Llacheu, riding beside his friend Drem. Both of them were girl mad, or should that be sex mad, to the point where Drem had recently been forced to marry the girl he’d impregnated, at the tip of her father’s sword. So far, Llacheu had managed to escape what he clearly saw as the shackles of marriage. But neither of them, as far as I knew, had ever spoken about a girl this way, not even any of the young women of the fortress who sold their favors to keep themselves and their children fed.
I could smile about Llacheu’s and Drem’s exploits, but Medraut and Iestyn’s words only made me cringe. The thought that one day they might talk about Archfedd and Reaghan in this way sent a cold finger of fear down my back.
The narrow, hillside path in the sunken lane we’d taken flattened out, presenting us at last with the high, grassy banks of the fortress, still topped by the few charred stumps that were all that remained of Melwas’s palisade wall. Probably the farmers had carted the rest away for firewood. We rode through the gap where the gatehouse had once stood into the grassy interior.
Dinas Brent was a much smaller fortress than Din Cadan, and the hall it had once boasted had been mean in comparison with ours. Now, only blackened and jagged wooden teeth remained. To one side of the ruin stood a single house, a new-build– little more than the sort of rude hut the villagers inhabited. The smoke twisting up from its freshly thatched roof must have been what we’d seen from afar.
In front of the hut, at a safe distance, stood the heaped beacon fire, waiting to be lit in time of peril. And sheltering from the prevailing westerly wind against the ramparts, our outpost keepers had erected a lean-to for their horses, who were at this moment grazing loose, but with heads raised and ears pricked as they viewed us new arrivals.
A couple of the warriors, who’d been watching our progress up the hill from the top of the ramparts by the gateway, slithered down the grassy slope and came loping over to us. “Milord Arthur.” They touched their foreheads and bowed, the curt, economical bow of soldiers. From the far side, where the ramparts faced seawards, a third warrior waved his hand, but didn’t come to greet us. Keeping watch on the Sabrina estuary for pirate ships. How useful would he find a telescope?
Arthur swung down from the saddle. “Elgin, Duer, well met.” He clasped forearms with each man. “I’ve brought reinforcements so you can start rebuilding this fortress, and a company commander.” Morfran dismounted to greet the two warriors, and they saluted him with respect. There’d be no trouble here.
Arthur waved an arm to encompass the decrepit walls. “It’s time a new palisade rose here, and a few better houses than that one. When the winter winds blow, you’ll find it in the sea and half-way to Dyfed.”
Elgin, a grizzled warrior with a large bald patch nestling amongst his thickly curling hair, laughed out loud. “Aye, you’re right at that, Milord.” He surveyed the men we’d brought. “But you didn’t need to bring me all yer army.” He grinned at me. “Though we’ll be happy to have yer luck with us.”
Arthur’s turn to laugh. “Half the men are for you to keep. Half to ride home with me. And I can assure you my wife will be of that party. But first, we’ll stay a while and get you started. With the weather so fine, we’ve no objection to camping out while we work.” He beckoned Medraut and his friends to come closer. “I’ve also brought you four green boys to forge into men. I thought it best to get them away from the fortress where they’ve spent their childhoods. Here they can start afresh and be treated as men, not boys.”
Elgin surveyed the four boys, who were all much the same size and build– sturdy as Medraut, and well-muscled from their daily sword practice, but surly of face. An unlovely group.
He grinned. “Aye, we can lick this lot into shape until they’re worthy o’ bein’ called men. No problem.” He looked back at Arthur. “Now, a horn of cider for you, I think, Milord.”
*
The camp wemade on the summit of Dinas Brent was slightly more comfortable than a marching camp. Unbeknownst to me, Arthur had ordered a tent brought with us on the pack ponies– for him and me. The rest of the men were consigned to sleeping in the open, which would be fine as long as the weather held.
After we’d sat around the cookfire and eaten a hearty stew of meat and root vegetables, cooked in beer and thickened with coarse flour to the sort of consistency you could scoop up on hunks of bread, Arthur and I retired to our tent.
It was made of leather and big enough for me to stand upright at the apex, if not for Arthur, but like the men we had to sleep on the ground. I unrolled my bedding with singular lack of enthusiasm for the fact that we’d be spending longer here than I’d expected. It had nothing to do with the camping out part, but rather was due to the unquiet memories I had of this place.
Even though the sun had sunk beneath the distant Welsh mountains to the northwest, the evening remained warm, and Arthur tied back the flaps of the tent to let fresh air in. We still had our privacy though, as the tent pointed toward the ramparts and our men had rolled out their bedding behind us, around the dwindling campfire.
