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.”