"I think we should ask him, now, while it is fresh in our minds. Where might he be?"
"Not far from here, wherever he is." Llewellyn stood up. "I'll find him and bring him back. Stay you here."
While the enigmatic one eyed man was gone, I sat alone, rethinking everything that had come to pass so surprisingly in the previous hour or so. It was growing dark rapidly now, so that I could barely see beyond the firelight, and I threw some new fuel on the embers that remained in the shallow pit in front of me. It had caught and been more than half consumed by the time Llewellyn returned, accompanied by Huw Strongarm.
I could see from the look on Huw's face that Llewellyn had said nothing about why he had brought him to me. It took almost an hour of talking, during which several of my men came looking for me and were all sent away again unheard, but by the end of the hour, Huw had agreed to my suggestion, backed as it was by Llewellyn's quiet, strong support. He would, he agreed, serve as a rallying point for those of his people who might come to him—his modesty was such that he had serious doubts that any would—and he would, furthermore, prepare the way, and the people of Cambria, for the coming of their true king, Uther's only son, Arthur Pendragon.
I had to bite hard on my lip, hearing those words, for memories of what my brother had told me of another, firstborn son reared up again to frighten me. I stifled the thought, nonetheless, and swore in return to Huw that, if he were as true to this as he had been to Uther, I would be no less true in supporting him, with all the strength of Camulod, in his endeavours to end this present war. And so we were agreed.
By midafternoon of the following day, not a single Pendragon Celt remained in camp. Llewellyn and Huw had begun their work almost immediately, and throughout the morning the Pendragon had been assembling in groups throughout the camp, only to break up again and circulate, spreading the word and then regathering in larger groups. By noon, close to three hundred men had assembled there, vociferous in their support of Huw Strongarm. Huw had addressed them briefly then, amid a crowd of my own troopers attracted by all the activity and excitement, and shortly after that the noisy, colourful Celtic crowd had begun drifting apart and scattering to the winds, to carry the word of Uderic's perfidy and Huw Strongarm's summons to arms to every village and hamlet in the Pendragon lands.
Small in number though their group had been, their passing nevertheless left a certain quiet hanging over our encampment. To keep my men occupied and to expend the useful energies stirred up in them by the morning's events, I set them to refurbishing and refortifying the ancient walls. We would be staying in this place for two full weeks and perhaps even longer, awaiting the return of Huw and Llewellyn, and there was much to do to set aright forty years of neglect and make the place acceptable again as a defensible stronghold.
I joined in the work, stripped to my tunic and glad of the hard exercise as I sweated among a chain of men, passing heavy building blocks from the man behind me to the one ahead, towards a group of our masons working industriously to repair a fallen section of wall. I had been hard at it for well over an hour by the time Derek and Benedict found me, and so I felt no pang of conscience as I walked away from the chain with them, wiping the sweat from my shoulders, neck and face with a rough cloth. A squad of messengers had arrived, Ben said, with word from Tertius Lucca, who was holding the harbours at Caerdyff and Caerwent on the south Cambrian coast, behind us and to the east. Lucca had. received word that a substantial train of supply wagons was on its way north from Camulod. It would proceed directly to him in Caerdyff, and he would redirect it to us.
In the past six weeks, Lucca's troops had found no enemy activity to report. Lucca suggested that Ironhair's shipmasters had finally accepted the loss of the south-eastern harbours and were making no effort of any kind nowadays to approach them. They had learned that lesson, Lucca stated, only after sustaining heavy damage in a succession of all out attacks involving abortive landings, to the east and west of our positions, in the vain hope of surrounding our garrisons. Perhaps, he suggested, some of his troops would now be better employed with us, rather than languishing and growing bored, pent up in garrisons that felt no threat. He could leave a holding force in place, he reported, perhaps one third of his current complement of three thousand, to occupy, patrol and defend the south-eastern coastal harbours. The remaining two thousand could then travel the short distance to us in company with the supply train. On my approval, he said, the reinforcements would be with us in a matter of days.
I thanked and dismissed the messengers before I conferred with my own people. All of them had reservations, as I had myself. The truth was that, in our current situation, where we had had no real contact with the enemy for months, other than the ambush set by our supposed ally Uderic, we had no need of the extra troops. Until we were ready to march again, they simply represented extra mouths to feed.
Benedict, taciturn, as usual, was the only one of my captains who sat silent throughout the discussion, forcing me to ask him bluntly for his thoughts. He then asked me what I had planned for Huw's return, and how many men I expected him and Llewellyn to bring back. He had, of course, laid his finger squarely on the root of our dilemma, and that now forced me to admit that I did not yet know the answer to either of his points, since the first depended almost entirely upon the second. I was reluctant to commit myself to a course of action, I pointed out, since Huw himself had grave doubts that his people would follow him.
This evoked a buzz of comment among my listeners, but it was Benedict himself who silenced them by holding up his hand. This unaccustomed gesture brought him instant attention. He looked at me, eyes squinting against the sun, then looked around at everyone.
"Not worth considering," he said, raising his voice. "Not even tenable." He jutted his jaw pugnaciously, as though expecting to be challenged. "You all know me. I don't like conjecture and I don't make predictions. But I'll make one now, and if you'll think about it, you'll admit I'm right." He turned back to me again. "Huw Strongarm will rule Cambria within the year, free of opposition. He's the natural choice and the perfect man for the task. Ironhair's here with Carthac because there's no organized will right now to drive them out. We're organized, but we can't reach his people in the high hills, let alone fight them on their terms. Besides, we're as much Outlanders as they are, and so we're suspect in the eyes of the Pendragon kinglings. Too many little kinglings, with too many little bands that think themselves armies, and every one of them out for himself, for his own good, with his own little ambitions. Strongarm's no part of that, and had he stood up before now to be counted, he'd be in overall command already. Now he is ready. The Pendragon will follow him wherever he decides to take them, and he'll take them to victory far quicker than anyone else could. So he'll be coming back, and soon, and he'll bring thousands with him. We had better be prepared to move as soon as he arrives, and to serve as a solid platform for his catapult. That's all I have to say."
Derek almost interrupted him before he could finish, with a loud, woofing grunt of approval that grew into an appreciative roar of acclamation as the others joined in the applause. Benedict looked about him almost truculently, flushing with doubt filled pleasure.