Jack Whyte - Uther

"The Longhead."

"Ah, that's right, you know him from before, don't you? Yes, Lagan Longhead. Now, the difficulty lies in that I don't know where he is. He might even be dead."

"If he's alive, I'll find him. Why is it dangerous?"

Uther shrugged. "For several reasons. First, you'll be alone, and the countryside is swarming with Lot's mercenaries."

It was Nemo's turn to shrug massive shoulders, genuinely unimpressed.

Uther continued. "Another reason is that he might be mad, and therefore unpredictable. Have you heard about what happened to his wife and son?" Nemo shook her head and Uther outlined the story briefly. When he had finished. Nemo nodded, indicating that she understood.

"When do you want me to go, and what do you want me to tell him when I find him?"

Uther made a huffing noise through his nostrils and emptied his cup in a single gulp. "I want you to go as soon as you're ready, and when you find him, bring him back here to me. Tell him the Queen is safe, and that she and I need his counsel. Can you remember those exact words?"

"The Queen is safe and you and she need his counsel. I can remember that."

"You'll need these," Uther said, reaching into his scrip and pulling out two small items. "They are the tokens I arranged to use with Lagan. This one, the coloured pebble, is his own. It will prove to him that you come from me. The other, the wax seal marked with a cross, was to be my token to his father, Herliss, and to him. Keep them close and guard them well and never part with both of them at the same time. Always keep one of them in your possession. They are your guarantee of safe conduct through Lagan's army, wherever it might be."

Nemo closed her hand around the tokens and nodded. "Good. I'll go now." She stood up and gulped down the mead, then tucked the two small items securely beneath her tunic. Uther sat watching her.

"Tell me your message again. Nemo."

"The Queen is safe and you and she need his counsel."

Uther nodded, his face grave. "I won't try to offer you a reward for this, but when Lot is dead and we are safe back in Cambria, you can tell me what you want and you'll have it, if it lies within my power to grant it."

"I want to live in Camulod with you and the Dragons."

Uther was surprised and touched by the simplicity with which she said the words, so close to the dearest wish of his own heart. But he could not find it in him to tell her bluntly that he would never live in Camulod again. He knew, and she did, too, were she to think about it, that his life lay now in Cambria, among his own people as their King. He had sworn an oath to that effect. And so he said nothing of that, but grinned with pleasure at her request.

"Well, my old friend, none of us can know what will happen tomorrow, but if fortune smiles on us and all goes well down here in this wild land, we might all be able to fulfill our dreams. Now, we'll be leaving here today as quickly as we can arrange ourselves and make away without appearing to run off. Our line of march will be directly southward to Herliss's fort at Tir Gwyn. You've been there. When you find Lagan, you can intercept us anywhere along that route, or at Tir Gwyn itself if it takes that long. May all the gods of Cambria go with you, Nemo, and may we see each other again soon. Farewell."

He held out his hand and Nemo grasped it in friendship and loyalty, probably for the first time ever, then sniffed and turned her face away, vainly trying to conceal the tears that stood in her eyes. Uther drew himself upright and Nemo nodded, her eyes downcast now, and then turned and strode off, jamming her helmet onto her head. As she went out, another decurion passed her on the way in and saluted Uther.

"Your pardon, lord, but we have to strike your tent again. Have you finished in here?"

Uther looked around him with a sigh. Apart from sitting in a chair by the brazier and pouring two cups of mead from the flask, he had not touched a thing since the tent was erected hours earlier.

"Aye," he murmured. "Bring in your men. I'm done here."

Less than two hours later, two hours of intense, concentrated labour by everyone concerned in the preparations, Uther's army had reformed itself and turned backward to face south, the way it had come. A full screen of scouts already rode fanned out ahead of it as it advanced, and another, similar force would deploy behind it as it marched. Uther had called for volunteers for the rearguard, a hazardous post should the northern Ersemen be as close as he suspected they might be, and command of that contingent had gone to a young officer called Marcus Bassus, a gifted junior commander from Camulod who took great pride in being the fourth generation of his family to serve in the forces of the Colony.

As his men marched away, Uther Pendragon sat alone for a while, gazing up to the towering headland where his arch-enemy might be standing looking down at him. Then, when the last of his troopers had almost disappeared from sight, he spurred his horse and rode after them, leaving young Bassus to form up his mixed guard of bowmen and infantry and take their place far in the rear of the retreating army.

Late in the afternoon of the following day, his rear ranks were overtaken and attacked by a fast-moving body of highly disciplined troops, forcing Uther to make use of a formation seldom used in his training programs, since his forces had seldom had to fight on the defensive. In the process of throwing out a protective screen of heavy cavalry to shield the infantry while they regrouped, Uther had little time to think about what the attack meant in terms of Bassus and his rearguard or his screen of rear scouts other than to recognize that they must all be dead. The enemy had advanced and attacked with shocking speed. The swiftness of their approach had made it difficult for his people to number them accurately in the early stages of the attack, but Uther was prepared to accept an approximation of from seven hundred and fifty to a thousand men, split into three independently advancing groups, each with its own commander.

The newcomers were Germanic, not Ersemen. That was obvious from their discipline and their generally well-equipped condition, with ring-mail shirts and uniform, rectangular shields. Many of them carried heavy axes, Uther could see, but the remainder carried long, useful-looking spears. Uther had never seen real Roman soldiers, for the Romans had disappeared from Britain during his early childhood, but he knew instantly that his attackers were Roman-trained veterans, tough and hard and superbly disciplined, real soldiers rather than rough bandits, men who had served and fought together for years and would be easily and eagerly brought to fight, but not put to flight. Watching the way they moved to engage his forces, he could see that they were familiar with cavalry and showed no fear of the mounted troopers. They held their formations effortlessly and were magnificently well drilled, and that set him wondering immediately whether he might be able to use their discipline to his advantage. He spurred his horse into a dead run and, closely followed by Garreth Whistler, Huw Strongarm and a small group of senior officers of the Camulod contingent, galloped to the top of a low knoll nearby, where he could look down on the activities taking place on the level ground below him.

The officer commanding the cavalry sent to interpose themselves between the enemy and Uther's deploying infantry was a Camulodian called Nestor Strabo. He had formed his men into a wedge formation for his first attack, but even as they formed up and began to move forward to the attack, he had to give the signal to halt them again when two of the three independent enemy units began moving quickly towards each other, forming themselves into the famous Roman tortoise configuration, while the third unit wheeled and moved away from them.