Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

I smiled. "Thank you for that," I said. "But take my ease?" I considered that, then laughed aloud. "Why not, indeed? There's little else for me to do right now. Ded's a good man. He really has no need of me at all, since it was he who taught me the knowledge of command."

"You say so? He doesn't look that old."

"Nor is he . . . perhaps four or five years my senior. . . but Ded is old in soldiering. He was a centurion when I was a raw recruit and my father named him shepherd to me on my first command patrol."

"What will you do now, Merlyn? Now that you have your horses back?"

I looked at him squarely. "Go home, I suppose. But one thing troubles me."

"Name it."

"My men, the ones killed in the raid last year. They were killed by Pendragon arrows, not by landless renegades like those you hanged back there among the oaks. From all I know of Pendragon, you guard your longbows closely."

"Hmm. That is true, we hold our bows close. True, too, that some of your men might have died that way, but not all of them. That's not possible. Others have bows, even these renegades we hanged." He turned away and shouted to one of his lieutenants close by, and when the fellow came over, sent him off to bring the bows they had confiscated from the renegades. The man returned a short time later, followed by another. The first carried an armload of bow staves, all shorter by an arm's length than the great Pendragon longbows, and the other bore several quivers of arrows, similarly short by the full span of a hand. Together they dropped the weapons by the fire with a clatter. Dergyll eyed them and then spoke to me. "There were two of our bows there as well. Two of our men took those. The arrows are useless to us." He leaned forward and picked up one of the quivers, containing a dozen arrows or more, and tossed it onto the fire.

I shook my head, unconvinced. "The arrows that we found were all Pendragon arrows. We had to cut them out of our men's flesh."

"Aye, you would have. And were all the dead men full of arrows?"

"No, but they all bore arrow wounds."

"There you are then! Only our arrows hit heavily enough to pierce and lodge and defy recovery. They'll cut right into bone, if they're launched hard enough or close enough. These things—" He waved a hand in disgust at the remaining, shorter arrows. "These things are useless. They'll kill you, but so will a pebble if it's thrown properly and you're unlucky." He paused, then continued. "You can thank your friend Ironhair for the deaths of your men. I told you he disappeared from our camp and went to join Carthac. He took two score bows with him, and arrows for them, pulling them in a hand cart. Walked right through the line of my guards and not a man questioned him."

I smiled, slightly incredulous. "What did you do to the guards?"

"Hanged one of them. He was drunk and probably asleep. Didn't see a thing. The tracks of the cart passed by within paces of him. Anyway, since that time, we have been trying to win back those bows. They have a value far beyond any other thing to us."

"And how many have you recovered?"

"Seventeen, of two score, including the two we took back last night."

I stooped now and picked up one of the lesser bow staves, examining it. It was rectangular in section, unlike the round longbow, and made of ash, I guessed, undoubtedly less than one tenth as powerful as my own compound bow. "So you are telling me that my men were probably killed by bows like this, in the hands of renegades assisted by a few Pendragon from Carthac's following?"

"No, I am not, for any who follow Carthac have forfeited their claims to be Pendragon, but you are something right. The matter of the horses should confirm it. Horses like yours are of no use to us, high in our hills. Our own are more sure-footed, bred to the mountainsides. Only Carthac, influenced by such as Ironhair, would be fool enough to see it otherwise."

"Hmm. To lose one's name, especially the right to call oneself Pendragon, would be a potent punishment, I think. Not to be entered into lightly . . . Unless Carthac emerges victor in your war," I suggested, one eyebrow raised. Dergyll saw no humour in my suggestion.

"Hah!" Dergyll scoffed at the mere idea. "He might win a few fights, but Carthac will never be the victor here, for victory will mean that all the true Pendragon have been slain."

"I would like the opportunity to take Ironhair," I mused. I had completely accepted his explanation of the raid upon our outpost.

"Forget Ironhair, Merlyn. Leave him to Pendragon. He has much to answer for and I will see to his answering." He stopped, gazing into the fire and evidently thinking deeply, then turned his face to me again, his mind made up.

"Are we still allies, Merlyn?"

I was unable to mask my sudden gladness and relief.

"Still allies? Pendragon and Camulod? You doubt that? It had never crossed my mind that it might not be so." I felt like a hypocrite, mouthing the lie, yet was deeply grateful for the great draughts of mead that had lowered his guard and permitted me to overreact so shamelessly.

He frowned at that, however, betraying that he was not yet far gone in drink. "You say so here, with all your thousand troops?"

"Of course," I assured him. "Think of it, Dergyll, the sense of it! What kind of fool would I be to ride against all Pendragon with a thousand men? And if Pendragon were at war with us, would they have stopped short at one petty raid against one outpost? No, my friend, I rode against one band of murderers and thieves, and brought a thousand men to teach a lesson. That lesson, undelivered now and unrequired, is yet swiftly stated: war among yourselves if you must, but remain clear of Camulod."

He was still gazing at me. "You marched against but a band, then, unaware of who commanded it?"

"Aye. A band, not a people. We knew your people are at war among themselves. We also knew the waging of that war is no concern of ours, although the preservation of our alliance did concern us. Not knowing whose claim stood against whose, we had no other choice but to remain apart, unless sought out, and let you solve your problems by yourselves. But sought out we were. We were attacked, by people who, unchecked and unreproved, might return to do the same again."

"Aye." Deep in thought again, Dergyll leaned forward and threw several more of the short bow staves on the fire. Then he coughed, deep in his throat, and when he spoke again his voice was clear-edged and full of resolve. "You and I had better talk more then, of alliance."

Within half an hour, we had resolved that I would leave four squadrons behind when I returned to Camulod, under the overall command of Dedalus, with Philip as his deputy. Four mounted squadrons amounted to one hundred and twenty-eight men, plus half as many extra mounts. These forces would police the lower parts of Dergyll's territories, under the titular command of Camulod. Dergyll had convinced me that only he and Carthac remained active in the kingship dispute, all other claims having fallen under his own by various treaties. The campaign against Carthac was destined to be short-lived, he swore, and conducted mainly in the high hills of the northernmost Pendragon territories. The presence on the lower hills of a band of swift-moving cavalry would aid in this, keeping the hunted renegades penned up in the highlands, where Dergyll's bowmen could deal with them effectively.

For their side of the bargain, six score Pendragon bowmen would return with us to Camulod, under the command of Huw Strongarm, who was a kinsman to Dergyll and whom Dergyll trusted more than some of his own subordinates, to train with Ambrose in conjunction with the armies of Camulod. Dergyll would fight his war and win in his own way. Camulodian horsemen would protect his flanks within his own boundaries, and Camulod itself would guard the outer zone. It was more than I would have dared hope for days earlier, and the thought of facing the Council and explaining my precipitate decision to leave my men here held no terrors for me. I was returning with six score of Pendragon bows.