She stared in the dimming light. It was apparent that she had either not heard before, or had not understood. She repeated, still only half believing: "Bedwyr of Benoic? Himself? Arthur of Britain?"
"Arthur is here, not far away, with a troop of soldiers. King Hoel is sick, but he sent us to find you. Come now, Lady. Our boat is small, and none too seaworthy, but if you will come with us now to safety, we will return later and carry your lady back for a seemly burial."
So it was done. Two litters were improvised from pine boughs, and on them the girl's body, decently shrouded in a cloak, and the old nurse, collapsed into a feverish sleep, were sent to Kerrec under guard. The remainder of Arthur's force, guided by Bedwyr, rode for the sea shore.
It was low tide. The sand stretched wide and flat and grey, shining faintly under the darkness. They splashed across the river mouth where the lake water and the tide mingled, and then, away ahead of them to seaward in the breaking dawn, they saw the steep cone of the sea-islet which, by Bedwyr's reckoning, must be the "island tower" of which the ruffians had spoken.
Since the old woman had been abandoned to die on the lake island, the tide had flowed and ebbed again, so there were no guiding marks on the sand, but inland on the flats where the river wound its way through its delta of salt turf to the sea, the tracks of horses were plain to be seen making straight for the shore and the rough causeway that led across, at low tide, to the island. Its high rocks, cloudy with trees, loomed out of a calm sea, the tide, just on the turn, creaming along the island's base and between the stones of the causeway. No light showed anywhere, but they could just see, guided by Bedwyr's pointing finger, the outlines of a tower at the summit.
The King regarded this, sitting his horse at the sea's edge, motionless but for the knuckle that tapped thoughtfully at his lip. He might have been contemplating the making of a rose-bed in the Queen's garden at Camelot. He looked no more warlike than he had done on that "peace mission" to Cerdic, when Agravain had inveighed so bitterly against the apparent tameness of the "duke of battles." But Mordred, at his side, watching with interest and a rising excitement that he found hard to conceal, knew that he was seeing for the first time, at last, the Arthur of the legends; this was a professional, an expert at his trade, the man who alone had saved Britain from the Saxon Terror, deciding how best to set about a very minor matter.
The King spoke at last. "The place looks half ruined. The fellow is a brigand, holed up here like a badger. This is not a case for siege, or even attack. By rights we should take hounds and bay him out like a boar."
There was a murmur from the others, like a growl. They had all seen the girl Elen's body as it was carried ashore. Bedwyr's horse reared suddenly, as if sharing its rider's tension. Bedwyr's hand was already at his sword, and behind, among the Companions, metal gleamed in the chill dawn light.
"Put up your swords." Arthur neither glanced aside, nor raised his voice. He sat relaxed and quiet, knuckle to lip. "I was about to say that this was a matter for One man only. Myself. Do not forget that the Princess Elen was kin to me, and I am here for King Hoel, whose niece and subject she was. This beast's blood is for me." He turned then, stilling the renewed murmur. "If he kills me, then you, Mordred, will take him. After you, if it becomes necessary, then Bedwyr and the others will do as they wish. Understood?"
There were assenting noises, some of them obviously reluctant. Mordred saw Arthur smile as he went on: "Now listen to me, before we scale the island. There are apparently at least three other men with him. There may be more. They are your meat; tackle them how you will. Now, they may have seen our approach; they will surely suspect it. They may come out to face us, or they may try to barricade themselves in the tower. In that case it will be your task to bay or burn them out, and bring their leader to face me." He shook the reins, and his horse moved forward, fetlock deep in the sea. "We must cross now. If we delay longer the tide will be over the causeway, and they will come down to take us at a loss as we swim our beasts ashore."
In this he proved wrong. The gang, secure in their knowledge of the rising tide, and, with the stupidity of their brutish natures, unheeding of pursuit, were all within the tower's walls, and had set no watch. Round the remains of their supper fire they slept, four of them, in a litter of gnawed bones and greasy remnants of food. The leader was still awake, nearest the fire, turning over in filthy hands a pair of golden bangles and the jewelled charm that he had torn from Elen's pretty neck. Then some sound must have caught his ear. He looked up, to see Arthur in the moonlight beyond the tower doorway.
The roar he gave was indeed like a bayed boar. And he was as swift, a giant of a man, with thews like a smith, and eyes blazing red as a wild beast's. The King would not have scrupled to kill him unarmed — this was no fight, as he had said, but the slaughter of mad brutes — but no sword could have been wielded within the tower's walls, so Arthur perforce stayed where he was, and let the man snatch up his weapon, a massive club which outreached the shorter man's weapon by inches, and rush out on him. His fellows, slower with sleep and surprise, tumbled out in his wake, to be seized by the knights who waited to either side of the tower door, and killed forthwith. Mordred, hand to hand with a burly fellow who stank, and whose breath reeked like an open drain, found himself forgetting all the knightly practice that the years had taught him, and reverting to the tricks that had once served the fisherman's son in the rough tussles of his boyhood. And it was two to one in the end. As Mordred, tripping, went down under the other man's weight, Bedwyr, joining him almost casually, spitted the fellow like a fowl, then stooping, cleaned his sword on the grass. The dead man's clothes were too dirty for the office.
The gang were all dead within seconds of emerging from the tower. Then the Companions stood back to watch the execution of the leader.
To their trained eyes it seemed obvious that he had himself had some kind of training in the past. A brute he was, but a brave brute. He rushed on Arthur, club against sword, and with the first tremendous swipe of the club outreached the shorter man's sword with a blow that sent the King reeling, and dinted the metal of his shield. The heavy club, sliding across the metal, took the giant for a moment with its impetus, and in that moment Arthur, recovering his balance, cut past club and arm, straight for the unprotected throat above the thick leather jerkin. The giant, for all his size, was quick on his feet. He jumped back, the club beating upward again and striking the sword out of line. But Arthur's arm and body went with the thrust, taking the blow higher, over the club and straight at the giant's face. The point just scraped his forehead, a short cut but a deep one, right above the eyes. The man yelled, and Arthur jumped back as the great club flailed round again. Blood spurted and flowed down the giant's face. It blinded him, but the very blindness almost proved Arthur's undoing, for the man, maddened by the sting of the wound, hurled himself straight at the King, ignoring the ready sword, and with the surprise of his rashness getting past it so that he came breast to breast with his opponent, and with his great weight and wrestling grip began to bear Arthur backward to the ground.
Perhaps Mordred was the only one there to appreciate the swift and very foul blow with which the King extricated himself. He wrenched out of the monster's grip, dodged the club again with apparent ease, and cut the man across the back of the knees. Yelling, the giant fell with a crash like a tree, thrashing about him as he went. The King waited, poised like a dancer, till the club's head thudded into the turf, then cut the wrist that held it. The club lay where it had struck. Before the giant could even feel the pain of the fresh wound the King stepped past through the gush of blood and stabbed him cleanly through the throat.