Jack Whyte - Uther

"No, not a sign."

"Good. Then we had better get ourselves to sleep. It has been a long and wearying day, and this will be a short night with another long day tomorrow."

It had grown dark as they spoke, and the entire camp was almost silent, few of the tired men possessing the energy to sit up talking by the fires for an extra hour as they normally would. Uther slipped his arm around Ygraine, as Garreth Whistler vanished in search of his saddlebags and bedroll, and he led her close to one of the fires nearby. There he covered her with his great red cloak, draped his sleeping blanket over that and then lay down beside her in full armour, pulling the coverings over himself, too. They kissed a few times, each of them comforting the other, and then fell asleep in each other's arms.

Uther awoke before dawn in pitch darkness, brought to awareness by the sounds of banked fires being rekindled. He lay blinking up at the stars for several moments while he adjusted to where he was, and then he raised the coverings and rolled out of his ground-hard bed, lowering the covers back quickly over Ygraine before the night air could sweep in and chill her. It was cold, and everything was wet with a heavy dew, so he moved well away from his sleeping place before he began to stamp his feet, jarring the kinks out of his joints and swinging his arms to warm and loosen them, too. As soon as he felt that he could walk without creaking, he made his way downstream along the edge of the river until he was well clear of the camp, and there he relieved himself gratefully before washing his face in the icy stream.

By the time he returned, everyone was astir, even the Queen and her women, and he and Ygraine shared a quick breakfast by one of the fires, talking about her brother Connor and his expected arrival while they ate their normal morning travelling ration of lightly roasted grains and nuts mixed with chopped dried fruit, washing it down with fresh, cold water from the spring. Somewhere behind them, they could hear their son whimpering and fretting as one of the women changed his swaddling clothes, cleaning him and making him ready for the day's journey. After that, as the eastern sky was beginning to lighten with the first, faint promise of a new day, everyone shared the duty of cleaning up the campsite, the men rolling and tying their bedrolls and the women packing their few belongings, while the Cambrian bowmen readied themselves for the march, tending to their bows and bowstrings and wiping any moisture they could find from the blades of their other weapons. The troopers checked their harness and weapons and found their own mounts among the horse lines, saddling and bridling them and fastening bedrolls and saddlebags before pulling themselves up into the saddles. Controlled chaos became eddying confusion and then quickly gave way to order as the milling troopers formed themselves into disciplined units.

It was almost full daylight by then, and Uther, his head bare and his huge helmet cradled in the bend of his elbow, was waiting impatiently for everything to be in order, and as awareness of his disapproving frown spread among the men, that order was achieved, and a stillness fell. Uther nodded, satisfied, but just as he raised his clenched fist to give the signal to move out, a shout went up from the outer ring of guards and a mounted trooper came hammering towards them, shouting an alarm.

Uther rode out to meet the approaching man immediately, waving him down as he drew closer, but he already knew what the trooper, whose name was Curio, would tell him. Sure enough, he brought word of a large body of heavily armed and armoured horsemen approaching quickly, forty or fifty strong, coming down the valley from the north by the route that Uther had followed the day before. They had come with the first light of dawn, Curio said, and they had been moving slowly over the unfamiliar and night- shrouded ground, but fortunately young Telas, the man with the best eyes among the guards, had been on duty and alert for any signs of movement in the gathering light. He had seen the newcomers the moment they came into view and had raised the alarm.

Junius Lepo had sent Curio off immediately at full gallop to warn Uther, while he and his remaining ten troopers had gone into hiding, prepared to meet and engage the newcomers, hitting them by surprise. That had been less than half an hour earlier. Curio could not know how long Junius Lepo and his ten men might be able to fight off the strangers, or if they would be successful in holding them at all, but he had ridden at the gallop all the way, escaping unseen and sure that he was leaving his mates to their death.

Uther listened, resisting the urge to curse Garreth Whistler for his insubordination of the day before. It was by no means certain, he told himself, that the newcomers had followed the Whistler. They might have simply come south on their own initiative, looking for plunder of any kind. But even as he thought the words, he doubted them.

"Very well," he said to Curio. "Come with me and stay close by me, but keep your mouth shut. I'll do all the talking."

He wheeled his horse and spurred it back to where the others sat watching him and waiting, but he pulled up short of them, where none of them could easily hear him speaking quietly.

"Garreth," he called. "A word with you."

Garreth Whistler kneed his mount forward to where the King and Curio had drawn rein, some way from the rest of the party.

"Those riders you evaded yesterday, were they cavalry?"

The Champion's brow clouded. "No. They were mounted, but they had no formation and showed no signs of discipline. I wouldn't call them cavalry. Why?"

"Because they're coming down on us right now. Junius Lepo and his men are trying to hold them, but they're outnumbered. Call in the perimeter guards and have them form up with the others. Cato, over here!" Garreth moved away immediately, and when the junior cavalry commander presented himself, saluting smartly, Uther told him to send one of his best mounted men back along the track behind them to watch for the first signs of an approaching enemy and then bring word of how far away they were and how quickly they were coming.

Cato saluted again and turned away briskly, and Uther was already calling others to him: Alasdair Mac Iain, the Queen's captain; Ivor, the captain of the remaining Pendragon bowmen, no more than thirty of them left now; and Catt. their Cornish guide. Tersely, he told these three what was happening and ordered them to take their men and strike out immediately for the coast with Ygraine and the other women. They were sixty strong, he pointed out, and probably more than enough to fight off the newcomers, but the strangers were mounted and apparently well armoured, and that would give them an enormous advantage even against Pendragon bowmen in a running fight. For that reason, he and his troopers would remain behind to stop the oncoming horsemen, giving the foot party a chance to reach the coast where, if the gods were kind, Connor Mac Athol would be awaiting them with his own forces.

His listeners looked at each other, tight-lipped, but no one spoke. Finally Alasdair nodded. "So be it. Fight well. King Cambria."

Uther's eyes widened at the name that, as far as he had known, no one but Ygraine used. Then he nodded. "I need to say a word to the others to let them know what's afoot, and I need a few moments alone with your cousin and my son. As soon as I have done so, we will be gone and so will you. Waste no time on the road, my friend, even should it mean carrying some of the women."

He saluted the three men and then turned to face the remainder of his group, telling them succinctly what he had told their commanders. He wasted no words and made no attempt to lessen the impact of what he had to say. They listened grimly, and then the two groups, those on foot and those on horseback, began to move apart.