the autumn gales beating about the thatch, we supped again in Cador’s mead hall, I with the great gaunt joyful head of Cabal on my
knee; behind us the long road and the choking summer dust cloud rolling up through Gaul, behind us the urgent struggle to get the last of the horses across before the weather broke. And the
torchlight and the heather beer seemed the more golden for the triumphant knowledge of fine big-boned Septimania stallions and the brood mares picketed within the ring fence of the Dun.
Bedwyr, with dark smudges beneath his eyes – for the last crossing, with the Black One on board, had been no easy one, and he had not slept, even in his accustomed place at the great
brute’s side, for two nights before it – had come from his fairly won place among the Companions and sat on the harper’s stool beside the hearth and sang for us, or maybe for
himself, the triumph song of Arwas the Winged after he slew the Red Boar.
chapter six
The Laborer and the Hire
T HEY BROKE AT NOON, AND ALL THE REST OF THAT DAY AND most of the next we had driven them, among the willow-fringed islands and the reedbeds and the
wildfowl meres; we had fired their winter camp (they should be well used to the stench of homesteads going up in flames). We had cut off the stragglers and burned their narrow dark war boats in the
mouth of the Glein. Now, at evening on the second day, we came up from the river marshes toward the monastery on its island of higher ground, where we had left the baggage beasts.
We were a full band, three hundred cavalry, four hundred counting grooms, drivers, armorers, et cetera – or we had been, two days ago. We were somewhat less this evening, but in a few
weeks we should be up to strength again; we always were. There were no captives with us. I have never taken captives, save once or twice when I had need of a hostage.
Cabal trotted as usual at my horse’s off forefoot. Bedwyr rode on my sword side, and on the other, Cei who had blown in like a blustering west wind to join us when first we made our
headquarters at Lindum, just two years ago. A big, red-gold man with hot-tempered blue eyes, and a liking for cheap glass jewelry that would have become either a Saxon or a whore. Those two had
proved themselves in the past summers when, sometimes alone, sometimes with the half-trained warriors of Guidarius, the local ruler, we had attacked the settlements of Octa Hengestson, and driven
back his inland thrusts again and again. And the time was to come when I counted Bedwyr the first and Cei the second of my lieutenants.
Bedwyr had unslung his harp from its accustomed place behind his shoulder, and was plucking the strings in triumphant ripples of notes that broke in waves of brightness, managing his horse with
his knees the while. He often played and sang us home from battle. ‘After the sword, the harp,’ as the saying runs – and always it seemed to help our weariness and our wounds.
When the tune was recognizable, Cei lifted up his voice in a deep grumbling buzz that was his nearest approach to singing, and here and there behind us a man took up a snatch of the familiar tune;
but for the most part we were too spent to join in.
The sun was sinking as we pulled up out of the rustling reedbeds, and the vast arch of the sky was alight with a sunset that seemed to catch its mood from Bedwyr’s harping and break in
waves and ripples of flame. Never, even among my own mountains, have I known such sunsets as those of the eastern marshes, winged and shining skies busy as market crowds or streaming like the
banners of an army. The standing water among the reedbeds caught fire from the sky, and overhead the wavering lines of wild duck were flighting.
On the lower levels only just clear of the marsh, the monastery’s horses were grazing. It was horse country, though most of the beasts, sturdy though they were, were too small for our
needs; too small, that is, if we had had any choice in the
knee; behind us the long road and the choking summer dust cloud rolling up through Gaul, behind us the urgent struggle to get the last of the horses across before the weather broke. And the
torchlight and the heather beer seemed the more golden for the triumphant knowledge of fine big-boned Septimania stallions and the brood mares picketed within the ring fence of the Dun.
Bedwyr, with dark smudges beneath his eyes – for the last crossing, with the Black One on board, had been no easy one, and he had not slept, even in his accustomed place at the great
brute’s side, for two nights before it – had come from his fairly won place among the Companions and sat on the harper’s stool beside the hearth and sang for us, or maybe for
himself, the triumph song of Arwas the Winged after he slew the Red Boar.
chapter six
The Laborer and the Hire
T HEY BROKE AT NOON, AND ALL THE REST OF THAT DAY AND most of the next we had driven them, among the willow-fringed islands and the reedbeds and the
wildfowl meres; we had fired their winter camp (they should be well used to the stench of homesteads going up in flames). We had cut off the stragglers and burned their narrow dark war boats in the
mouth of the Glein. Now, at evening on the second day, we came up from the river marshes toward the monastery on its island of higher ground, where we had left the baggage beasts.
We were a full band, three hundred cavalry, four hundred counting grooms, drivers, armorers, et cetera – or we had been, two days ago. We were somewhat less this evening, but in a few
weeks we should be up to strength again; we always were. There were no captives with us. I have never taken captives, save once or twice when I had need of a hostage.
Cabal trotted as usual at my horse’s off forefoot. Bedwyr rode on my sword side, and on the other, Cei who had blown in like a blustering west wind to join us when first we made our
headquarters at Lindum, just two years ago. A big, red-gold man with hot-tempered blue eyes, and a liking for cheap glass jewelry that would have become either a Saxon or a whore. Those two had
proved themselves in the past summers when, sometimes alone, sometimes with the half-trained warriors of Guidarius, the local ruler, we had attacked the settlements of Octa Hengestson, and driven
back his inland thrusts again and again. And the time was to come when I counted Bedwyr the first and Cei the second of my lieutenants.
Bedwyr had unslung his harp from its accustomed place behind his shoulder, and was plucking the strings in triumphant ripples of notes that broke in waves of brightness, managing his horse with
his knees the while. He often played and sang us home from battle. ‘After the sword, the harp,’ as the saying runs – and always it seemed to help our weariness and our wounds.
When the tune was recognizable, Cei lifted up his voice in a deep grumbling buzz that was his nearest approach to singing, and here and there behind us a man took up a snatch of the familiar tune;
but for the most part we were too spent to join in.
The sun was sinking as we pulled up out of the rustling reedbeds, and the vast arch of the sky was alight with a sunset that seemed to catch its mood from Bedwyr’s harping and break in
waves and ripples of flame. Never, even among my own mountains, have I known such sunsets as those of the eastern marshes, winged and shining skies busy as market crowds or streaming like the
banners of an army. The standing water among the reedbeds caught fire from the sky, and overhead the wavering lines of wild duck were flighting.
On the lower levels only just clear of the marsh, the monastery’s horses were grazing. It was horse country, though most of the beasts, sturdy though they were, were too small for our
needs; too small, that is, if we had had any choice in the
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