Helen Hollick - Pendragons Banner (Pendragons Banner Trilogy)

Acknowledgements The research into the background facts of Pendragons Bannerhas been interesting, rewarding and timeconsuming! I am indebted to so many:the efficient and welcoming staff at Higham Hill Public Library, Walthamstow;Charles Evans-Gunther and Fred and Marilyn Stedman-Jones for theirencouragement and support.

At Heinemann my sincerethanks go to Lynne Drew, my Editor, for herenthusiasm, experience and patience, and to Mic Cheetham, my agent. I dontknow what Id do without them.

Thank you to my specialfriends, Hazel and Derek Cope, Mal Phillips and SharonPenman writing is a solitary occupation, true friends are especially needed.Also, a thank you to Richard Cope for his knowledge of birds; Sue and GeoffWilliams for showing me the very beautifularea of Wales near Valle Crucis Abbey; Joan Bryant, and her late husband Bill, who taught me so muchabout horses; and Doris Hawkins and Joan Allen, both lovely ladies it is oftenthe little things that help the most!To my Mum, Iris Turner and sister Margaret Clark, thank you for being there. Myonly regret is that my Dad is not alive to share the pleasures ofsuccess.

Finally, and most important, I thank myhusband Ron and daughter Kathy. Kathy has never complained at my involvement inmy work, nor minded the long journeys to visit remote sites for research. Onlyoccasionally does she grumble that 1 monopolise the computer! Ron has supportedme, financially and emotionally, through all these difficult years of writing. I am proud to have him as a husband, and to him I dedicate Pendragons Banner, with all my love.

PART ONE

The Sewing

October 459

I

With an exhausted grunt of effort Arthur, the Pendragon, raised hissword and with a deep intake of breath, brought it down through the full forceof weight and momentum into the skull of an Anglian thegn. Another battle.Arthur was four and twenty years of age, had been proclaimed Supreme King overGreater and Less Britain three years past by the army of the British and hadbeen fighting to keep the royal torque secure around his neck ever since.

The man crumpled, instantly dead. Arthur wrenched his blade fromshattered bone and tissue with a sucking squelch, a sickening sound, one hewould never grow used to. Oh, the harperstold of the glories of battle, the victory, the brave daring and skill but they never told of the stench that assaulted your nostrils, bringingchoking vomit to your throat. Nor of the screamsthat scalded your ears, nor the blood that clung foul and sticky andslippery to hands and fingers, or spattered face and clothing.

Heturned, anxious, aware that a cavalryman was vulnerable on the ground. His stallion was somewhere to the left, a hindleg injured.The horses. Hah! No harper, no matter how skilled, could ever describe thesound of a horse screaming its death agony. There was no glory in battle, onlythe great relief that you were still alive when it was all over.

Sword ready to strike again, Arthur found with a jolt of surprisethat there was no one before him, no one to fight. Eyebrows raised, breathless,he watched the final scenes of fighting with the dispassionate indifference ofan uninvolved spectator. No more slopping andwading through these muddied, sucking water-meadows; the Angli were finished, beaten. The rebellion, this snatching ofBritish land that was not theirs for the taking, was over.

TheAnglian leader, Icel, had wanted to be more than a petty chieftain over ascatter of huddled, backwater settlements, and that wanting had plunged deep deep enough for himto unite the English warbands. Fighting against the British had been sporadic at first, skirmishes, night raidsand isolated killings. Arthur had not been King, then, when Icel began makinga nuisance of himself, but when the Pendragon bested Hengest the Saxon, away down to the south of Londinium, the armyof Britain acclaimed him as Supreme. And Icel sent word across the sea for his kinsmen to come with the next spring, to come and fight this new-made king of theBritish who rode at the head of an lite cavalry force; to come and fight, for surely the victory over such a war-lordwould be worth the winning! The thinghad grumbled on through the roll of seasons ever since.

ThoseAnglians able to run or walk or crawl were escaping, running away to die orsurvive within the safe, enveloping darkness of fast-coming evening. It wasover, after all these long, weary months, over. Until the next uprush of theSaexkind tried for the taking of more land, or some upstart son of a Britishchieftain fancied for himself the command of supreme rule.

With slow-expelled breath, the Pendragon lowered hissword and unbuckled the straps of his helmet, let them dangle free, his facestinging from the release of the tight, chafing leather. He was tired. By theBull of Mithras, was he tired! Arthur stabbed his sword-blade into the churnedgrass and sank to his knees. His fingers clasped the swords pommel as hedropped his forehead to rest on his hands, conscious suddenly of the great weariness in his arms and legs and across his neckand shoulders. It had been a long day, a long season. He was bone tiredof fighting and this stink of death. He had a wife, two sons born, anotherchild on the way; he needed to be with them, to be establishing a secure stronghold fit for a king and his queen; to bemaking laws and passing judgements raising his sons to follow after him. A king needed sons. Llacheuwould reach his fourth birthday nextmonth ... Arthur had hardly seen his growing; the occasional few days, apassing week. He needed Gwenhwyfar, but shewas to the north, more than a days ride at Lindum Colonia, uncomfortable in herbulk of child-bearing. Love of Mithras, let it be a third son! Movement. Arthur opened his eyes but did not lift hishead. Two booted feet appeared in his lowered line of vision, the leather wasscratched and spotted with the staining of blood. He would recognise those fine-made boots anywhere, the intricate patterning around the heel, the palerinlet of doe- hide. He looked up with a spreading grin of triumph intohis cousin and second-in-commands face. Cei, wiping sweat and the spatter of other mens blood from his cheeks,grinned back, his teeth gleaming white behind the darkness of hisstubble- bearded face. For a while and a whilethe two men stood, grinning at each other like inane moon-calves.

Thatis it then, Arthur said, climbing slowly to his feet and pulling his sword from the ground. It felt heavyto his hand now, now that the fighting was done. Happen we can thinkabout going home to our women and families. Cei shrugged a non-committalanswer. If God was willing they could go home soon. When the dead were buriedand the wounded tended. When the submissionswere concluded, hostages taken andthe Kings supremacy over these Saex scum endorsed. When the grumblingand muttering from the British, discontentwith Arthurs objectives, were silenced. Aye, happen then, they could.

Arthurbent to wipe his blade against the tunic of a dead Anglian lying face down inthe blood-puddled, muddied grass. He gazedat the mans back a moment, with his foot turned over the body. A boy,not a man, with only the faint shadow of hair wisping chin and upper lip. A boywho had listened to the harpers tales of battle and had felt his heart quickenfor the excitement and honour. A boy, whoknew nothing of the reality of thisgod-damned mess! Sons were needed to fight with their fathers. And to die alongside them. The harpers ought sing of that! Sing of the cruelty of losing abeloved son; the pain of wounds that were beyond healing. Arthur sighed.So many sons and fathers dead. So much spilt blood.