Their antics reminded me of my first view of the Libyans charging down the practice field at Camelot. Just the memory made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Surely the sight of so many would daunt even the barbarian Saxons and send them scurrying back whence they had come!
“Well, we’ve mounted Gwalchmei, Geraint, Cei, Bed-wyr, Medraut, Drustanus, Bwlch, and Cyfwlch; Prince Cador has three for battle and King Mark two …” I had no more fingers to count on. “All of the other Companions and half the chieftains and war leaders already pledged to support Lord Artos are now riding Libyan stallions.”
“There’ll be casualties,” Bericus murmured, his expression sobering, and he sighed. “But”-and slapping both hands on the upper rail, he turned with renewed
vigor to me-“we’ve more than fifty trained full-blooded Libyans right now. More than enough to cause the Saxons to think again about contesting the field with the Comes Britannorum.”
“And Rhodri has ten more to be added to that number. Come, Bericus, he’ll be in the training field,” I said, and we made our way there.
TWO DAYS LATER, when I had put brand-new rims on those ten young horses, Firkin and I, in a large group of bowmen and slingshot mountain men under Manob’s command, made our way to Camelot. I cast my eyes over every single foot soldier who made up that contingent; I almost wished that Iswy were among them so we could settle our enmity once and for all. I was now ready for him.
Following Teldys’s advice after the ambush, I approached Yayin and asked him to teach me some defensive tricks with daggers. He could nail a rat to the wall from fifty paces and often did so, since rats were a constant menace in our oat store. Now I carried a well-honed bone-handled knife sheathed in my left boot. Yayin had also offered to teach me how to use a sling, but I hadn’t the tune to practice. A dagger would be a more useful weapon.
Manob set us as fast a pace as the foot soldiers could trot. And they seemed indefatigable, those wiry dark mountain men, still able to laugh and joke half the night around the campfire. I, on the other hand, had to check the sandals and hooves of the forty horses and was only too glad to roll up in my blankets at night.
AS WE MADE OUR WAY, we could feel a palpable tension in the villages and towns we passed through. Folks cheered the black horses as if they, in themselves, were the omen of victory over the Saxon hordes.
So I was actually in Camelot the day the exhausted messenger arrived, his horse so lathered that the beast looked gray rather than bay. The rider, of the Atrebatii, was covered with dust, sweat, and lather from his horse, and slid awkwardly from his saddle. He shrugged off assistance, demanding to be taken immediately to Lord Artos.
“They are moving,” the man gasped. “Take me to the Comes…”
I went to the horse, who was all but foundered from the bruising pace at which he had been ridden.
Bericus hurried the messenger into the great hall, but the man paused at the top of the steps and looked back over his shoulder.
“Save him if you can!” he cried to me, his face contorted in anguish for the horse he had ridden so hard.
The bellows boy who helped me in Ilfor’s forge was to hand, and between us we unsaddled the gasping animal and led him slowly into the stableyard. There we rubbed him down with twists of straw, and massaged his legs, and more carefully soothed his back; it had been rubbed raw in places by the rough saddle, which hadn’t enough padding. We cooled him off enough to let him drink without endangering his recovery, and then we placed him in a stable, hock high with fresh straw, where he could rest.
I couldn’t help noticing that his hooves were badly broken. He might yet recover but whether he would have any hoof left on the off-fore I didn’t know, for it was cracked the worst of the four. No hoof, no horse.