Jack Whyte - Uther

"Not what we thought, eh?" This was Huw Strongarm. Garreth Whistler said nothing at all, merely watching Uther with tightly pursed lips. "Still, it could be worse, from our point of view."

"Could it?" Uther asked. "How?"

Huw allowed his surprise to show fleetingly and then ploughed onward. "Well, Lot's in there, and he's stuck there as long as we stay."

"We have no way of knowing he's in there, Huw."

"Yes we have. He's there, I've just been told."

"By whom, and why have I not been told?"

Huw shrugged and dipped his head. "Because the word came to me through one of my own men no more than moments ago, and I'm telling you now. One of our scout patrols picked up two local farmers early this morning. They are no supporters of their King, and they didn't need much persuasion to tell everything they know about this place. They saw Lot's arrival here eight days ago, and he hasn't been seen since. So we have him, safely cooped up in there. There's no way out that I can see."

"You can't see the back view of the cliff, Huw. They could have flights of stairs leading all the way down to the beach there, for all we know. Lot could have left by sea days ago."

"Aye, he could have. It's possible, I'll grant you that. But I'll wager he didn't, and if he stayed, then he'll stay there now until we say he can leave. There was a way out at the back, for some of my fellows have been there, seen it and closed it off. You set me in charge of all the scouts, remember, and that means that all our scouts are now Pendragon. First thing I set them to do once they got here was to explore the seaward side of things. There's a way down to the sea from the back, certainly, but it's not man-made. There's a few flights of steps, but they're primitive, and the rest is as nature made it—steep and narrow and dangerous. About two-thirds of the way down from the top there's a chasm, as though the entire cliff fell sideways at some time. My fellows couldn't see the bottom of it, said it's just like a hole clear down through the earth. Anyway, the gap's about ten paces wide at its narrowest point, and crossed by a bridge. Or it was. My fellows chopped the bridge down."

"They chopped it down . . . Are you telling me it was unguarded?"

Huw grinned and shot a glance at Garreth Whistler. "Oh no, it was guarded. There's a guard tower above it and another below it, but they were built to guard against an attack coming up the path from the sea, and the people in them were not expecting Pendragon bowmen. No one was expecting our scouts and no one saw them arrive. They crept around the base of the cliffs under cover of night and then scaled them on either side of the path just after dawn. Then they flanked the guard towers and picked off all ten of the guards before the fools even knew they were under attack. After that, they chopped down the bridge. So no one will be leaving by that back route unless they sprout wings and fly across the chasm. And there will be no re-supply from the sea using that route, either."

By the time Huw had finished, Uther was shaking his head in admiration. But then Garreth Whistler spoke up. "Huw's people could be very important to us were we to leave them on the cliffs, Uther."

"How so?"

"Well, they're safe there from attack from above. No one can see them down there from the walls, let alone reach them. But then again they have the advantage of height and distance when the fleet that Lot's waiting for arrives—if it arrives. Lot's people in the fort up there will have no way of letting the newcomers know they're in danger. The fleet will sail in close, expecting to land safely at the base of the cliff, and my bowmen will use the same trick they used at home against the invasion fleet: fire arrows soaked in pitch. In the meantime, you can deploy your army right across the base of the headland there, and Lot's all trussed up like a fowl for roasting. Can't leave, can't escape."

"But then we'll be involved in a siege, and one we can't win. We have neither the time nor the resources."

"We don't need them. If Lot's Erse fleet comes when it's supposed to, we'll savage it and send it limping home. That'll be a victory, and we'll rub his nose in it, since he'll have to watch and do nothing. Then, with his fleet gone, we can hold him here by leaving a small force to keep him locked up while the rest of our army marches south again."

Uther sighed and then looked about him at the way his army spread across the landscape and at the way the old fortification on the headland reared above them. From where he sat, on a hill facing the rising headland, he could barely see the sea at all. The headland rearing up directly in front of him cut off most of the view, and he was left with no more than two small stretches of flat-horizoned seascape, one on either side of the promontory. Finally he nodded.

"Very well, we'll try it, but for no more than three days. I have no wish to sit around here growing old, waiting for a fleet that might not even be a reality. Make your dispositions then and convene a meeting of all officers in the command tent this afternoon an hour before dinner."

When the others had gone, Uther looked to where Nemo and a squad of Dragons were erecting the huge tent and estimated that it would be no less than half an hour before he could hope to move in and remove some of his heavy armour. Resigned, he swung his horse around and kicked it forward to where the individual units of his army were being dismissed by their commanders and were starting to lay out their encampment. He knew it would do no harm at all to spend the time he had riding among his troopers, letting them see his face and hear his voice as they sweated to lay out their barracks lines in a way that would not draw the wrath of their decurions. And while he was bantering with some of his own men from Tir Manha, a messenger came looking for him to tell him that there was a stranger bearing tidings and asking for him by name. Uther excused himself and made his way back with the messenger.

He recognized the newcomer immediately as one of Ygraine's servants. The man had been among her retinue at Herliss's Crag Fort.

Now, however, he looked very different. While he had once appeared sleek and well-fed and unctuous, he now seemed haggard and frightened, his clothes torn and road-worn and his face and hands blackened with dirt. Uther's face closed into a thunderous frown and remained that way until the fellow, whose name was Finn, had assured him that the Queen was safe and that his own appearance was due only to his difficulties in remaining hidden from the mercenaries who thronged the roads everywhere to the south. Mollified upon hearing that, Uther called for ale and led the man into his tent, which was just now fully prepared, and sat him down by a newly lit brazier that soon began to throw out a comforting heat.

The Queen was well. Finn reported somewhat breathlessly after he had drunk deeply from the flagon of ale that had been brought for him, and so was her child, but they had recently been moved into a stronghold less than twenty miles south of where the two men now sat—much closer to Uther and his rescuing army than Ygraine could ever have hoped for. Knowing that Uther would be a mere day or two away from her. Ygraine had decided to send word to him immediately to come and get her and the child. She had been waiting for her confessor, Joseph, to return from a journey so that he could write a letter for her, but events had moved too quickly. Finn had been sent out early with added urgency when she received unexpected word from one of her informants that Lot's main army in the southwest, having failed to bring the Saxons there to battle, had turned around and was now marching back into Cambria, where it was to be reinforced and strengthened before joining with Lot's remaining forces to exterminate the Camulodians. It was now known, Ygraine had been told, that Uther's army numbered no more than two thousand in all, and the army in the southwest, prior to being reinforced, already outnumbered them by three to one.