Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Merlyn," she said softly, when she had broken contact lingeringly with my mouth. "That kiss was for your friendship and your love and your restraint. I wish it could be more, but we have said all that. Go now, and do what you must do, knowing that you hold a place within my breast that none will ever share, even my husband. I have two sons to bear, and you a child to rear and train to be a king. I cannot envy you that task, Merlyn Britannicus, but I know that you will excel in the doing of it and that the child, having you as tutor, will be taught the things a king must know, and a man must do . . . and I know that those are seldom the same things. Few men, few kings, excel at both. Even Athol, king among his Scots, was better king than father, for in the tending of his people he had not the time to tend his sons in fullness, and so bred ingrates and murderers among his own. Remember that, dear friend, when you turn to the teaching of your king. Governance, and equity, must be for all. Go you now, with my love, in spirit more than ever could be fleshly."

I stood mute, feeling my throat filled with a ball of grief and mixed emotions. Then I nodded, still silent, and led her down to where her father and my escort waited.

I ,long after she was gone to join Donuil, her words resonated in my breast, but presently the words she had whispered of her love for me faded into acceptance, leaving only the words she had said about my task, and kingship. Words that simmered in my breast and brought me to a change of mind and heart about the duty facing me in the days to follow.

XXVI

On the morning of the second day after we had turned around to descend beneath the snow line again, we found our horses. Huw Strongarm and his Celts had left our camp shortly after daybreak, leading directly southward from where we had spent the night on a quiet, well-watered upland plateau beyond which the ground sloped gently south towards another line of hills. There was no sign of winter anywhere that morning. The skies were clear, filled with the promise of a bright spring day, and the invigorating nip of the early morning air buoyed our spirits as we prepared to break camp and follow our scouts into the valleys to the south of us. I had just dismissed my ten troop commanders after the morning meeting and was checking the cinch on my horse's saddle when I heard my name called and looked up to see Philip waving to me from some distance away, where he had been watching his assembling troop. When he saw me look towards him he waved his arm southward, indicating something beyond my sight farther down the slope.

Curious, but not yet alarmed, I pulled myself up into the saddle and kicked Germanicus into motion, making my way to where Philip had been joined by Benedict and Rufio. Dedalus and two others joined them before I reached their side, and all of us stared off to the south. Three men, who could only be our own scouts, were running towards us and were soon close enough for the keen-eyed Dedalus to identify them as Menester, Gwern and Guidog, the inseparable trio. They were still more than a mile from where we sat watching them, and when Ded stated the obvious, that they had evidently found something, I cleared my throat.

"Aye, and there's little point in making them run all the way up here to tell us what it is, when they'll have to accompany us back down again. I'm going to meet them, gentlemen. Form up your troops and follow me, but hold them in check, if you please. Raise no alarm until we have discovered the truth of this."

I spurred forward and kicked my horse to a canter, breathing deeply and wondering at the calm that filled me. When the three men saw me approaching, they stopped as one, leaning forward, hands on their knees, to catch their breath. As I rode up to them, Guidog, the spokesman of the three, called out their news.

"Dead men, Commander. Thirty of em. flanging from trees down there in the next vale. An' horse tracks everywhere. Shod tracks and horse shit. Looks like they been keepin' 'em there all winter long."

I drew rein, looking back over my shoulder to where my men were coming down the long slope behind me in five columns of two hundred men each, ten wide by twenty long. Already they had spread out to form a five-front advance, and they looked impressive.

"Where is Huw?" I asked Guidog.

"He stayed there, Commander. Sent us back for you. Sent the others on ahead to follow the tracks."

"Very well, let's go." I stood in my stirrups and circled my hand above my head, signing the others to follow me, and then I moved forward again at the canter. Wordlessly Guidog and Gwern placed themselves on either side of me, each grasping a stirrup leather. Menester ran ahead, loping easily, as though he had not already run for several miles uphill. We came soon to a place where the ground began to dip more steeply, swinging west, and we followed the natural fall of the land into a narrow pass that opened out soon afterwards into a wide, gently contoured valley floored with deep, rich grass. Below us, more than half a mile ahead, a copse of massive trees stood alone in the midst of the green bowl.

"Oak trees," Gwern grunted from beside my left knee. "That's where they're all hanging, some of 'em nine to a limb. There's Huw."

I saw Huw Strongarm emerge from the trees and stand awaiting us, but as we approached I paid more attention to the macabre fruit hanging from the oak branches than I did to my chief scout. Guidog had not exaggerated. I counted thirty swinging corpses. Huw stood watching us approach, and appeared to be leaning on his unstrung bow stave. I knew that was not so, however, since no Pendragon would endanger his own bow, his most prized possession, by treating it so carelessly. He said nothing until I spoke.

"Who are they, Huw?"

"Two Pendragon renegades. The others are landless."

"Landless? You mean Outlanders?"

"No, they're locals, but they're not of our folk. I recognize none of them. They're dirty, though. Long-time dirt, too. They stink from afar. That's what tells me they're landless. Folk who belong—anywhere—keep themselves clean."

I made no attempt to pursue that thought. "How long have they been hanging, and who would have done this?"

Huw hawked and spat. "Yesterday, I'd guess. They've been up there overnight. Soaked with dew, all of 'em. But who did it? Your guess is as good as mine there. But whoever it was, they took your horses. These people wintered here. You'll see that when you go around these trees. There's a stream there, a couple of huts and some well-used firepits. And they kept the horses there, strung from lines most of the time, it looks like." He broke off to gaze up at the man hanging closest to him. "Reckon that's where they got the rope to hang these from."

I could hear the noise of my men approaching behind me. "You sent the others on ahead to follow the horse tracks?"

"Aye. There's no trick to following them now, Merlyn. They'll leave a track like one of your Roman roads. They can't be far ahead."

"Good. Wait here."

I swung my horse around and rode back to join the others, who were in the process of forming their parade ranks while they waited for my next instructions. I waved the ten commanders forward and told them what had transpired here, and that we would ride on immediately. Rufio looked at Dedalus and raised one eyebrow, not knowing I was watching him do it.

"What does that mean, Rufio, that look? Have you something on your mind?"

"No, Commander!" The look he threw me was one of wide-eyed innocence. It was Dedalus who answered my question properly.

"We were talking on the way down here, Merlyn. About the lie of the land. It makes me itchy."

"Why, in God's name? It's perfect cavalry country, firm and dry."

"Aye, except up there." He gestured to the north and west, where the hillside sloped up above us on our right. I looked where he pointed and saw nothing but open grassland stretching to the horizon for more than a mile.