Uther stood silent. Heartsick, he turned his head and looked around him, taking stock of what he saw. Then he nodded and reached up to loosen his cloak. "It might work. Here, have someone put this on, and this helmet, then put your plan to work quickly."
Dedalus shook his head. "That's no good, Uther. It can't be anyone else who goes. It has to be you. You're the King."
"That's right, I am the King, and I will not run away and leave my men to die."
"You have to, Uther." Garreth's voice was urgent. "You have to. You have no other sane choice. It would be a waste of everything you and all of us have fought for and believed in were you to die here, leaving Lot victorious when there's no need. Even if you do escape, you might still die out there somewhere, but at least you'll have a fighting chance to live and raise another army. No one else can do that, Uther. No one. Merlyn could have once, but not now. There is only you, now. You must live to fight again and put a final end to Lot, to avenge those who have died here today. And if you go now quickly, you will save more lives in departing than you ever could in staying."
Uther hesitated, still unwilling but almost convinced, and Dedalus added his voice to Garreth Whistler's.
"We'll stay here and hold the army together, what remains of it. Trust me, Uther. If you have ever believed me or admired me, trust me now. I know that when they see you leaving—and we'll make sure they see you plainly-—those whoresons down there will think you're fleeing with your women, and they'll take after you like hounds after a stag. But they'll have to climb this hill to chase you, and you'll be mounted, and they will see only a small party leaving with you. We'll send out the rest of the cavalry unseen, ahead of you, by the same path the women took earlier. You'll cut up and around to join them on the other side of the hills once you're safely away from here, and when the whoresons catch up to you, if they ever do, they'll find you at the head of four, almost five hundred horsemen, and the 'women' they'll expect to slow you down will be your own Pendragon bowmen. What say you?"
Uther looked from Dedalus to Garreth Whistler. "Garreth, I can't believe I'm hearing this from you . . . that you're telling me to abandon my army and save my own skin. You are my oldest, closest friend . . . And so I charge you now to be truthful with me, to speak not as a friend, but as the King's Champion. Do you believe, in your heart, that this is the course I should take for the good of all?"
Garreth Whistler nodded slowly, looking his King squarely in the eye. "I do, Uther. I believe it absolutely. I believe it is your duty and your burden as the King to do this. And I know how badly it sits with you. But bear in mind your father's belief, and his father's before that: there comes a time when every King must bear the burden of being much more than a common man. That burden is called duty, and a King's duty lies in safeguarding his people."
Uther's eyes filled with tears and he turned away, sniffing angrily and staring off into the distance as he struggled with what the King's Champion had said. Finally, after a long, stiff silence, he turned back to his two friends and colleagues and spoke in a voice heavy with resignation and regret.
"So be it, then. I'll flee. See to your arrangements, and may the gods protect both of you."
"All of us, Uther. May they protect all of us, including our men left alive down there in the valley and your own son and his mother. If you ride quickly enough, you'll overtake them without much effort. They're afoot and have no road to follow, so I doubt they'll be making swift progress."
Dedalus turned away and began calling out commands, sending men running in all directions, while Garreth Whistler set about unfolding and laying out the bright, feminine garments that Uther's bowmen would wear as they rode behind the mounted troopers.
Even before they had travelled beyond sight of the remnants of his own army, making their way carefully along the high slopes of the hillside on the western flank of the valley that had brought the army from the south against him, Uther could see that Dedalus's ruse was working. A long-drawn, swelling roar had risen up from the swarming enemy in the valley below as men saw them and pointed.
drawing the attention of others to their flight—the "women" in their bright and brilliant colours clinging to the backs of the troopers as they made their way slowly and precariously along the precipitous hillside behind Uther's enormous scarlet and gold banner. And slowly at first, but with a steadily increasing momentum, a surge of movement away from the fighting and towards the valley mouth had announced the beginnings of a hot pursuit, the visible prizes of a fleeing King and a crowd of high-born women having their predicted effect.
Uther took great care to remain in view and move slowly, exaggerating the difficulty of their route, until the floor of the narrow valley below them was jammed with running men, many of whom were already climbing the hill towards the mounted party. Once out of view of the battleground, he could not tell with any certainty how many of the enemy had followed him, but it soon became unmistakably clear that, once begun, the tide of pursuit had swollen to completion, with few of the enemy willing to forfeit such rich prizes to others who had simply moved sooner and more greedily. As he watched them swarming below him, Uther began to hope that the remnants of the battered army he had left behind might be able to regroup, consolidate their numbers and survive the catastrophe that had struck them. His despair at having abandoned them, however, was almost unbearable, and he rode in bitter, angry silence.
He maintained his slow progress along the Hank of the hill for four miles and more, grimly holding his mount in check, yet easily outstripping those eager forerunners who sought to take him on the hill. Then, when he could see that the hillsides were alive with climbing men, he signalled his people to turn their mounts and set the spurs to them, climbing the hill until they crossed over to the other side and made their way down into the valley that lay there to join the far larger group, more than four hundred to Uther's forty, that awaited them.
Reunited with his men, he led them at a fast, sustainable canter that devoured the miles ahead of them, but he left scouts behind in sufficient numbers to be visible to the pursuing enemy and to create the illusion that they were almost within reach, and he dispatched relays to relieve them every half hour, so that there was a constant stream of troopers coming and going between his main force and the pursuing hordes.
They caught up with Ygraine's party in less than an hour after reaching the valley bottom, the women's progress having slowed almost to a crawl as the hardships of struggling on foot through a pathless wilderness exhausted them. Ygraine's guards, no doubt frustrated by their lack of progress, had heard his party approaching and were tightly grouped around the Queen and her women, prepared to die there, when Uther arrived.
Ygraine was delighted and surprised to see him so soon, for it had been less than six hours since they had parted, and she wanted to know immediately how he had fared in the battle, but he waved her to silence and wasted no time trying to explain what had happened. Instead, he deflected her questions by rapping out commands to have the women hoisted onto horseback behind fresh troopers while his bowmen dismounted, aching and sore from their long ride, and stretched their legs until they felt sound again. He hoisted Ygraine to his own horse, to ride in front of him, loving the feel of her waist in the bend of his arms in spite of his anger and frustration, and ordered the baby's carrying pack transferred to the back of one of his own troop leaders. Only then did he summon the leader of the Cornish guides who had accompanied the women.
"How far are we from the river now?"
The Cornishman shrugged and pointed towards the brook that ran along the valley bottom. "A league, perhaps another half. No more than that. All these streams feed into the Camel. And on our present course, we'll reach it about another league inland from the sea."