Jack Whyte - Uther

"I learned long ago that Lot has no stomach at all for fighting personally. He would never dare come into Camulod in person. He would far rather send a warring group of underlings to squabble endlessly and achieve nothing, as they did the last time, than put himself in any danger. And that, Herliss, is why I am here in Cornwall. I have no interest in laying your land waste, but I will tear the heavens and all of earth apart to reach that foul toad's guts and rip them out of his stinking carcass while he still has eyes to watch me do it."

Now he swung his eyes to meet Herliss's gaze head on. "So, if he plans to march on Camulod again, with siege engines this time, he will send an underling. But it must be an underling who understands the principles of siege warfare. You?"

Herliss shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Not I, not now. Besides, I know nothing about fighting that way. I fight with my hands."

"Yes, quite. Who, then ? Would you tell me if you knew?"

"No. Is it important ?"

Uther grinned—a small, tight, ferocious snarl—and shook his head. "No, it is not. Not now and not ever, now that I have the engines. Where did they come from?"

"From my own holdings. I had them stored in several of my places along the south coast. They belonged to Lot's father, the Duke Emrys, and he obtained them openly years and years ago from the Roman garrisons along the Saxon Shore in the far southeast, while the coastal routes were still open. On the death of the old Duke, they passed into the nominal possession of King Lot under my continuing guardianship. He has always known they were there, and recently he asked me about them and made arrangements to have me bring them to him. He made no mention of where he would use them, and none of my being put in charge of them after they were in his hands."

"Just as well, because he'll never use them now." Uther turned to a mounted trooper who sat close behind his right shoulder, and then he stopped, plainly on the point of issuing an order. Instead, he turned slowly back towards Herliss. "Wait you, though. You were on your way to Lot to deliver the siege engines, is that not so?"

Herliss nodded, plainly considering the answer obvious.

"Then whence came Lot's Queen? Was she with you in the south?"

Herliss felt his face flush red, but all he could do was curse himself for a fool and nod abruptly in an attempt to brush this off as unimportant. Already, however, he knew his face had betrayed him.

"Aye," he growled. "She was staying with me, as my guest in Tir Gwyn."

"Your . . . guest."

"Aye, my guest. You find that strange? My youngest wife and she are good friends, close."

"I see. And how long had she been there? I promise you I shall find out the truth, so don't start lying to me now, Herliss."

The other man shrugged and looked away, mumbling an inaudible response.

"Your pardon, I missed that. What did you say?"

"I said she had been with us for some months."

"I see. Then she must be pining for her husband, and he for her by this time."

"Aye, mayhap she must."

Uther turned back to the trooper. "Nemo, go straight to Huw. Tell him to burn everything in the wagons except food and any portable equipment we can use easily. Tell him to burn the wagons, too, and not to fret about the smoke being seen. If anyone comes looking for the source of all the smoke, we'll give them far more to worry about than a mere fire. Go."

As the trooper wheeled away, Uther nodded again to Herliss. "My thanks for being honest, although there was nothing else you might have done. You may return to your men."

He glanced at Herliss's escort and waved them on with a tiny gesture of his fingers. And then, as they moved away, he tapped the pad of his index finger against his pursed lips, making small, sibilant kissing noises as he thought about what had happened and what remained to be done. Finally he reined his horse around and kicked it into motion.

Uther rode until he reached a blazing cook fire, where several of his party had dismounted and tethered their horses as they waited to be fed. Uther climbed down for the first time since mounting his horse that morning, some six hours earlier, and moved to pick up a broken loaf of hard-crusted bread, ripping off a large piece and taking a great bite of it. By the time he had chewed it for long enough to moisten it. Huw Strongarm had reached his side again, and Uther looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

"Is there something amiss?"

"No, everything's in hand. I simply wanted a drink of water."

"Good. Drink, and take something to eat. Then, as soon as the fires are blazing too fiercely to be put out, let's get everyone on the move and up into the safety of the hills. You know what to do—have the prisoners' wrists tied behind them, then string them all together by the neck in single file like slaves. Let them think they're all going to die, but don't let any of our people abuse them unnecessarily. We'll let them go eventually, once Lot and his people know exactly where and who we are. By that time, they'll no longer be a threat to us, since everyone will know our whereabouts. In the meantime, keep them under close guard. Who did you leave in charge of firing the wagons?"

Huw grunted and spoke around a mouthful of half-chewed bread. "Hard-Nose."

"Good." Uther took off his heavy helmet and placed it carefully beside him before he lowered himself and stretched out full length on the ground close to where the horses were tethered. "Half an hour. Wake me when we're almost ready to go."

He was asleep in moments.

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

Ygraine had no words to describe what she saw among the enemy forces that day. She watched with horror as the Camulodians, with organized efficiency, set fire to the wagons and their contents and then quit the scene of the ambush, with its blazing beacons and towering pillars of black, roiling smoke. They wasted no time in clearing the area, their mounted troopers serving as guards for the long lines of prisoners who were strung together, neck to neck, twenty-live men to a file, and then almost literally dragged behind trotting horses.

Untroubled by any responsibility for the prisoners, the long- legged bowmen moved away quickly too, in large, lightly organized groups, travelling on foot and maintaining regular formations. From where she sat watching them, Ygraine marvelled at how quickly they swept upwards and away, in connected bodies, rank and file, until from a distance they appeared to move across the hillsides like cloud shadows, their bows and quivers slung across their shoulders to leave their hands free for climbing. It was clear to her that they were moving well away in anticipation of reprisals and pursuit, but she could have told them that they had no reason for concern. There was no body of Cornish troops close enough even to see the enormous towers of smoke that marked the place, and it would be many days before Lot took the time to notice that Herliss was late in arriving. But of course, she said nothing.

Ygraine and her women, each riding behind one of their captors and constrained to clasp him around the waist for fear of falling from the horse's rump, travelled fast and hard for more than three hours, pausing only briefly, from time to time, to give their horses time to rest. And the bowmen, to Ygraine's great surprise, kept pace with them.

Eventually they arrived in another valley, a pleasant, shallow place with an ample stream running through it and a large, well- established encampment already in place. Heavy commissary wagons were set around a broad, open area that was scattered with blackened fire circles, all surrounded by logs for seating, and beyond that lay acres of cleanly laid-out horse lines and tent sites. Ygraine was astonished to realize that there were more horses and horse troopers camped there than there had been bowmen in the ambush that had captured her. Uther's force was a raiding party, she could see, but it was a large one and well equipped. She and her party attracted great curiosity among the troopers close enough to see that they were women, but they were lowered from their horses courteously enough, and then grouped together and loosely guarded while their captors transformed their end of the peaceful valley into a hive of activity, adding their own dimensions to the layout of the camp and setting up their own bivouacs.