THE SILURIAN

1: THE WONDER BOY

CROWS gathered in great flocks overhead as we searched the battlefield through the dead and dying. Some of the birds landed on bodies and I slashed my sword at them, trying to send them back into the sky. I watched them scream again in their darkness before I turned to look for my brothers. All around me men were dying, their voices dying, already dead men, telling the crows they were ready to leave their bodies for the Otherworld. And as I waited for Cai and Medraut to reach me, as I watched them stepping over these dying men, I shook, and trembled.

This was a terrible battle, our first as new warriors to the field, and I had never seen anything like it before. The horror of it, and I stood waiting in terror—for Arthur was missing. He was out there somewhere amongst the bodies, and so far, we had not been able to find him. I stood where I was, frozen in fear to believe Arthur may have been killed in this terrible clash of arms, where the dead smelled like blood and not men. I swallowed hard and began walking my way towards Medraut and Cai. When I reached them, me and Medraut fell on each other and held on tight. I cried at him, “Where is he? Medraut, say he is not dead.”

“I know, Fox, I know, we will find him.”

“Not dead!” I cried at him.

“Na, not dead, not Arthur. He’s too young, too clever; this was his battle, he won it, how can he be dead, he won it, Bedwyr! Look at me; this is his doing.”

We fell on each other again, trying to still our torment.

Cai joined us.

He said, “Aye, Arthur’s doing and he will have to pay for it.”

We looked around us, everywhere, bodies of the dead and the screaming of those still alive.

Medraut said, “We should put some of these men out of their suffering. I will do it,” and he walked off to put his spear through the chest of a Saxon under his feet. And as he did, he turned back to us and cried, “You know, I saw him earlier, somewhere over that way, he lost his horse too. Fox, come with me.”

Again, we began searching. We would not give up till we found him, and as we walked over the dead, with Medraut killing more wounded Saxons on the way, with the sky turning black above us and the bloody crows screeching, I thought I was dying. I began to lose my temper. It was naught but fear and horror inside me; I wanted no part of it. For I trod on the severed arm of a man lying under me, and I almost spewed up my guts to see it. I cried out in horror, a wail to the crows, and Medraut held me up as the sky darkened even more. Black rainclouds above—it was turning to winter already! I still held my sword, gripped so hard it chafed the palm of my hand. So many dead, I could smell them, the dead. And the carrion crows of the Dark Goddess, Morgen, she sent clouds of ravens, wheeling and cawing over our heads, making my skin crawl, their wings black like the sky. I sank to the ground in despair. A day of destruction and despair was this battle. The sun was going down and the bitter wind snapped at my cloak. If Arthur was dead, then this day would also be my last in this dark world. For I would impale myself on my own sword and follow him, I would. There was no doubt in me that I would, for I would not let him go alone across the divide, alone to Avalon. I would go with him. He would wait for me on the shore, and we would cross the water together. For we were brothers, bound together forever; my foster-brother, my life. A sour taste from inside came up into my mouth and gagged me. I spat on the ground and came back to my feet.

Medraut with me, and we carried on searching, and every step we made, he cursed, “Piss on their filthy Saxon blood! Saxon bastards!”

And he kicked one of their dead, a dead Saxon under our feet. I looked down at the man, and there he was, Arthur. Lying next to the Saxon Medraut had just kicked. I dropped to my knees, dropped my sword and turned him towards me, saw his face covered in blood. I lowered to feel for his breath, touching his chest to see if he still lived. I felt a soft beat of his heart, steady but slow. His helmet was split in half and lying on the ground, his head was split too, but it seemed his helmet had taken most of the blow.

Medraut called out for help and men came running. One of them shoved me out of his way as he fell on his knees at Arthur’s side. I watched helpless and in pain as the man tended him, one of our troop doctors, now ordering him taken off the field at once. More men came. They lifted him, his body was limp, and they carried him towards the wagons on the edge of the battleground. I jumped up and followed. Medraut and Cai came with me, both of them protesting in anguish when their troop captain found them, and ordered them out to their horses. It was time to evacuate the field, but I had to stay with Arthur. The men carried him roughly and this I did not like. I cried at them, “Be easy with him!”

But he did not wake even when they dumped him in the back of a wagon. I climbed up inside with him; put a hand against his face and called, “Arthur? Are you going to wake up now? Come on, don’t do this to me, wake up!”

I felt confused, why was he not waking up? I looked out of the open carriage doors; saw Medraut and Cai with the rest of their unit running for their horses. Lord Merlin, our druid, and Ambrosius’ chief physician, rode up to join me. He said, “Bedwyr, does he live?”

It was so good to see him! Lord Merlin was the best doctor in Britain. I answered him, “Alive, but why isn’t he waking?”

The war-horns were blowing the signal to move out, and all the warriors began wheeling off the field.

“By the Old Gods, I do not know why he isn’t waking,” Merlin answered me as he pulled closer alongside our wagon on his horse.

He trotted behind, saying, “If it is a head wound, it will bleed heavily, but he should have woken by now. The Greek doctors are whispering about a koma, the long un-waking sleep of the head-struck. If this happens, he may never recover his senses.”

“But that’s impossible,” I said to him.

I was more afraid than ever. Arthur was too young for this! He was only fifteen. I was only sixteen, and I could not even speak well because my mouth was so dry with thirst.

“How can a man sleep and never wake without dying, Merlin? This is madness. Please make him wake.”

Merlin said, “Boys your age should never be allowed to lead battles. This will cause problems for you, Bedwyr, with your father. And Lord Ambrosius should be ashamed for letting both you and Arthur take this field—look at him, lying there with his head cracked open! You are both too young to fight against Saxons like Hengist, and as you are a noble entrusted to his care by your clan, this will lose Ambrosius the support of your father.”

Nothing Lord Merlin said made sense to me.

I looked back at Arthur; he was half asleep, half awake, he was in a dream, sleeping with blood on his face. And no matter how much the wagon bounced and rocked, he did not wake up. A groom rode over with his horse, bringing my own with him. All around, I was crowded by warriors, smelled them like I had smelled the dead on the field. There was blood still on my boots.

Merlin rode off somewhere and left me. I felt sick. I began to shake. I could not believe we had survived this battle. If this was what battle was really like, it was naught but hell-fire on land, and I sat and trembled, for the fear of it was still on me.

I put a hand on Arthur’s sweaty brow, he moaned when I touched him, and I knew he was struggling to come back to me.

Another medicus came running.

He climbed into the carriage with me and began binding Arthur’s wound, a deep gash there on the left side of his head. We were now off the battlefield altogether and moving from east to west with all our surviving host and our wounded. We had battled in the country south of the great Arbus-water, where the Germani were again trying to take our lands, where the terrible Hengist had joined alliance with the Angles, their forces cut to pieces by a fifteen-year-old boy. I laughed about it to myself, thinking, Arthur, what have you done now? It was not as if he had never done anything extraordinary before in his life. Once, when he was twelve and I was thirteen, he rescued seven of our men from Saxons who had taken them captives and put them to work as slaves, and even before that, he had been amazing his elders, and angering his father.

Arthur was starting to rouse himself now, and I made sure I kept close at his side as we made our way back home, victorious. I stayed with him all the way, looking into his face. Blood was dried and smeared down into his lips, and I tried to wipe it away, touching his face with my fingers wetted with my spit. I did it gently, so as not to hurt him. What if he died? Could he still die? And the going did not get any better till we made a course south on the Roman road to Viroconium, and for most of the time Arthur slept, though he woke often, opening his dark eyes and looking at me as if I was a stranger to him. I told him over and over, “We’re nearly home. Hold up, brother, we are nearly home.”

He looked at me, he said, “So glad they didn’t kill you…”

Three long days. And by the time we finally got him back to barracks, the orderlies wasted no time in bundling him away into a warm room with a fire and women to fuss and feed him. Aye, this was good and I began to feel better myself, as they fed me too.

Often, I would stop eating when I worried, and other times, I fell into a black sorrow of gloom for no reason I could find, but now, with Arthur beginning to recover his senses, or so I thought, everyone important in Viroconium came to see him. Ambrosius the Supreme Commander of Armies in Britain came and looked down at him, as he lay still in bed.

“Now Arthur, how is your head?” the Commander asked him.

“It’s still there, my Lord,” Arthur answered.

“Still sharp-mouthed, I see. This is a good sign. I have written to your father about this, and yours too, Prince Bedwyr. I hope your fathers will understand the reasons for putting you both to battle on the front-line. How else will you ever learn?”

“The Fox need not have gone,” Arthur told him. “Lord Pedrawg will not like his son being used for front-line battle. I warned you of this, my lord.”

“Then he should not have put Bedwyr into my army, boy. Be quiet now and get some rest.”

Lord Ambrosius put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder; looked at me with a hard eye, and then went marching out of our room. But Arthur did not pay attention to the old man’s words; he only looked at me and said, “It’s a good thing you were not killed in that battle. Your entire clan would rise against him if you had. Not least having me kill him myself if you were killed.”

“He’s angry at you for taking that battle off him. You bested him in war, Arthur! You bested the Supreme Commander himself; you took control and you are only fifteen, do you think he will stand for this? When you get better, he will knock you down to a foot-soldier.”

“He trained me for this himself, right?”

“You are too brilliant for him, you outshone him. And your first battle. And I curse the rotten gods for making you brilliant and then splitting open your head. What were you doing? You don’t fight Saxons in single combat! You were almost killed, you bloody fool. Do you think I can stand it if you die, if you die and leave me?”

He laughed a little. “I did go wild, aye? I thought I saw Hengist himself, but it wasn’t him. I didn’t kill that Saxon who brained me, someone else did, I don’t know who it was. I fell in a swoon.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now; just do what you are told and get some rest.” I was still angry with him for almost getting himself killed. He was too brilliant to get himself killed. He needed a rein around his neck, or else, have me at his side so I could always protect him on the battlefield. He would take me to war whether I wanted it or not, just so I could protect his disobedient hide. Oh aye, I could see all of this coming—sons put to battle in the wars of our fathers.

I said to him, “You deserve to shine, not die at age fifteen.”

“I won’t. Fox, stop looking at me like that. Bugger off looking at me like that, or I’ll throw you out! I’m not going to die yet.”

“I’ll let you sleep, you prick.”

So he slept.

Over the days that followed, he slept a lot more, and his skin grew pale. That wicked wound on his head, it began doing things to him none of us could have foreseen. He was not healing right, as the very next morning when we were alone together, when our woman healer had gone to make us some porridge, I saw his body shaking as he slept. Not all of him, only his right arm and right leg. He started convulsing on the bed before me, like a man felled in battle and dying. He began moaning. I did not know what to do, so I stayed with him till the convulsion stopped. And when it stopped, he slowly opened his eyes, unfocused, like a baby just squeezed out of his mother’s body and born. I knew he couldn’t see me, because even though he gazed right at me, he looked as if he did not know me.

But he said, “I was looking for you…” He was all pale and groggy like a man still drunk. His lips were so dry I lifted his head for a drink of water.

He sipped it, and said again, “I was looking for you, Fox.”

“I’m here, where do you think I was?” I gripped tight to his hand and started to shiver too because it was so bloody cold in this room.

I told him, “I’m going to light the fire then get the doctors. Lie still, don’t try to get up.” I pulled out of his grip and began at once to build up the fire. My hands were shaking when I put the logs on the flames. I said, “What do you mean, looking for me?”

“My head is pounding!”

I stood up and went to him, looked at him. He seemed half asleep again and I leant down and shook him. He opened his eyes. He moaned again and said under his breath, “Let me go…” and he went suddenly quiet and still. I dropped down beside him, shook him again, but he would not respond. So I got up and ran from the room. I could not find anyone in charge, so I ran to Caan, our drill-master, and told him to send help, then ran back and was on my knees again at Arthur’s side. Some of the wives of the camp had come in to help nurse him, one of them was already there when I got back. She was trying to rouse him, to feed him with her hot broths, but he was limp in her strong hands.

She said, “He is starved. Once he eats and drinks, he will feel better. He is suffering, poor lad.” She spooned beef broth between his lips and he tried to swallow. I told the woman, “That blow to his head has knocked him brainless. I’m scared.”

As I spoke, a crowd of men came rushing into the room.

Master Caan and Lord Merlin, after them, two Greek doctors with their orderlies, also Ambrosius’ personal favourite kinsman, Cynan Aurelius, sent everywhere as the Commander’s representative whenever Ambrosius did not want to make himself seen. I wondered if the old man was feeling guilty about Arthur’s wound, for he had not come to see him since that first visit of his. All of these men wanted to throw me out so they could work, but the woman healer stopped them. “Can you not see the bond between these two boys?” she cried at them. “See how Arthur needs this boy? Leave him alone!”

I loved her for saying this, though it failed to make Arthur any better. The doctors doctored, but his illness went on for another fortnight, though he was well enough to sit up and drink and eat again.

He ate everything the women put in front of him, because he was so savage for life that food went right in and never came out again, or so I believed; for this friend of mine did not shit but twice a week, if ever. So he was allowed only barley-water to drink and blood-sausage to eat, and he did eat, starved like a wolf. He held on to every nourishing morsel, growing like a light, forcing everyone around to love him. Men, women, boys and girls, and even the dogs loved him to madness. He did this to everyone who met him.