Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

He chose not to answer me directly, his tone indicating nevertheless that fighting was not in the forefront of his thoughts at that moment. "Does the name Carthac mean anything to you?"

I frowned. "Carthac? It is familiar, but I don't know how. Didn't Uther have a cousin named Carthac? A strange boy, it seems to me, though it has been years since I thought of him. He was misshapen, was he not?"

Dergyll nodded. "Aye, he was, and is. Misshapen is a good word for him."

I was perplexed. "Why would you ask me about him, Carthac? Does he rule in Uther's place now?"

The answer to that was an abrupt bark of savage laughter. "Hah! Do you remember Mod?"

"Mod?" The non sequitur confused me yet again, but a face jumped into my mind immediately. "Yes, I knew a lad called Mod, apprenticed to my friend Daffyd, the Druid. Is that the Mod you mean?"

"Aye, and what of Ironhair?"

"Ironhair!" The name stunned me. "You mean Peter Ironhair? The smith?"

"Smith . . . Aye, I've heard it said he is a smith. But Peter Ironhair is what this fellow calls himself. He is from Camulod, no?"

"No! Or yes, he lived there for a time, until he deemed it wiser to move on. He was a newcomer, though, not one of our own. He made himself a power there, for a short time, while I lay ill. When I had recovered, he and I... disagreed . . . over some matters of policy and government. He tried to have me killed, but failed, then disappeared before he could be taken. How do you know Ironhair?"

"Because he fled from you to us. But he told us no tale of flight, or of murder attempted. He told us he was your friend, sent by you as a gesture of friendship, to work among us after the death of Uther, the king, your cousin."

"What? But—"

"Wait you." Now Dergyll raised his other arm, his right, and one of the men sitting on the knoll behind him produced a long horn and wound a low, ululating note from it. For long moments nothing happened, and then two things occurred at once. The bowmen positioned on the flank of the hillside broke into new movement, breaking ranks and beginning to move laterally, back in the direction of the hill at the chief's back, to where they would no longer constitute a threat to my own men. At the same time, a new surge of movement broke out from behind the low hill ahead of me, and our forty missing horses were brought forward, herded by five or six men mounted on the smaller mountain ponies of the Celts.

"We have a camp, a mile farther down the valley. And we have hunters out. Bring your men, and join us. Mod is there, in our camp. He has a tale for you."

"I will, but wait you now. You believe this Ironhair to be a friend of mine?"

He smiled, and the grimness of his features disappeared. "I did, but your own face gave the lie to it. Now I know different. That's why I called away my men. Come you ahead when you have spoken with your people. I'll see you in the camp. There is a stream, and ample water and grazing for your beasts."

He turned and ran lithely back to where he had left his horse, leaping fluidly up onto its back without hesitation, so that I remembered again what a wondrous rider he had been even as a boy. I walked back to my own horse, mulling over the entire confrontation.

Dedalus sat and watched me, making no move to speak until I was safely anchored in my saddle. When he did speak, it was in his usual sardonic manner.

"How are your bowels?"

"Remarkable, why do you ask?"

"I simply wondered if they spasmed as much as mine when those creatures up there threw off their coverings. Come now, admit they did."

I smiled at him, nodding ruefully. "A little, I must admit, but I had already foreseen the possibility, thanks to Quint's comment earlier. And I remembered how Uther had been caught in much the same way, by Lot's people hiding beneath nets, in a ravine. That was the time Lot's bowmen used the poisoned arrows, you recall?"

"Recall? Shit! I was there, right in the thick of it. One of those arrows hit my cuirass, smack between the nipples, knocked me back in my saddle and then skipped off, up over my shoulder. Must have missed my neck and jaw by a hair's width. That's why my bowels turn to water when I see bowmen. When those whoresons jumped up above us there, my sphincter clenched so tight I hurt my stomach muscles. So what's to happen now? We have the horses. Are we going home?"

"No. We're going to join Dergyll and his men at their camp. We'll eat with them, probably spend the night there, and perhaps head home tomorrow." I could see from Ded's frown that he was about to argue with me, so I cut him off before he could begin to speak. "He has a tale to tell me, and there's also an old friend of mine in his camp. And Ironhair is here, in Cambria, no friend of Dergyll's. That much I can tell you. The rest I'll learn later. Come, let's tell the others what we are about."

Ded's argument, whatever it might have been, remained unspoken as we joined the rest of our party and led them towards the low hill where Dergyll's party had sat. Once there, I ascended the hill to where I could see all my men, and then I told them all that had transpired, thanking them and congratulating them for their steadfastness under the threat of the massed bowmen on the hill. That done, I led them onwards, still in formation, to Dergyll's campsite, which contained, I estimated, somewhere in the region of six hundred men.

Dergyll's Pendragon men stood watching us in silence as we arrived, and although I sensed nothing inimical in their silence it was, at the very least, disconcerting. My own men, for their part, took the silence as their tutor and responded in kind, so that the meeting of the two hosts was one of the most unusual any present there had witnessed. I led our formation, riding alone in front, almost directly to the edge of the encampment and then sat there while my troops lined up formally behind me. Then, seemingly at the precise moment when the sounds of moving horses and harness behind me faded to silence, Dergyll himself came striding from one of the few tents at the centre of the Celtic gathering and bade us welcome in a great, stentorian, parade- ground voice. His shout, clearly heard by every man present, and his wide- armed signal for me to join him, were the signals for a general surge of noise and activity as his Celts relaxed all at once, breaking away to resume the activities interrupted by our arrival and speak among themselves as though nothing had happened. That was not strictly true, however, for I noticed many of his men move forward to address some of my own veterans, and I realized there were more than a few there who obviously knew each other from the days of the wars with Lot. Huw Strongarm and his group, I saw, were mingling easily among the others. I signalled to Dedalus to take over the dismounting and deployment of our troops and horses, and dismounted, waving casually to Dergyll to indicate that I would join him presently, then made my way to where big Huw stood among his own group and others who had joined them. Huw saw me approach and moved to join me, and I pulled him aside, turning my back to the main throng and keeping my voice low, so that he had to lean in towards me to hear what I said.

"This Dergyll," I began. "You said that when you came back home you went to offer your services to him before any other?"

"Aye, why?"

"Then you would trust him?"

"Trust him?" Huw twisted his face into a scowl that might have been a smile of some kind. "Trust's a chancy thing . . . Aye, I suppose I would trust him as soon as any other, and more than most. He was a good man when I knew him well, before these wars broke out."

"Could I trust him? That's what I'm asking you, Huw."

He sniffed and appeared to consider his next words carefully, then he nodded once, and then again.

"Aye. Aye, you may trust him, so be it you both make plain in what your trust lies vested."