Winter's Blossom: The Seasons of Arthur

Chapter 23

The land of southern Elmet was very surprising for me. I had grown up in Gwynedd. All around us, all the way to the sea there had been mountains that seemed to reach into the heavens, with fast flowing rivers and deep valleys. As I had come east into Powys the land had seemed to soften. The land seemed roll, and was better suited to growing crops and larger herds of cattle than Gwynedd had. It was a rich kingdom with infrastructure built by Rome and inherited by the Britons who had been left behind.

Southern Elmet though was flat, so flat that it did not seem real. The land seemed to stretch out endlessly, as far as you could see. Distant trees broke the distant horizon in the east, there was a smudge to the east as the land appeared to meet the distant clouds and I wondered how that such flat land could appear to meet cloud. Only hills and mountains could do that, such as those that could still be glimpsed in the west towards the hills that ran the centre of northern Britain. Perhaps there was fog.

We were marching north through Elmet on the Ermine Street. Roads, I thought again of Ambrosius words, the key to war. The Romans had built these roads that allowed them to move armies across Britain within days. A little over three hundred years ago a Roman legion had marched quickly down this road to quell a rebellion, only to be routed by British warriors outside Camulodunum, the Roman capital in Britain, led by a woman whose name had rocked Rome.

That same legion, sixty years later had marched north to their complete annihilation at the hands of my Votadini ancestors, resulting in the building of the Roman wall by the Emperor Hadrian. I felt a fierce burn inside me at my own people. The Romans had conquered the majority of the known world but they had never been able to subdue the Britons and the Votadini.

At the front of the column of men Owain rode between Dirandon and Lancelot. The latter had been given command over thirty cavalrymen and I was caught between bitterness that Lancelot had been brought along as part of this warband, worse that he had been given such a prestigious command; and my amusement of Dirandon having to include Lancelot in his conversations. I knew that Dirandon would have ridden with me if I had been mounted, but I had taken his advice about "miles on my legs" being the only way to acclimatise my body to forced marches that had taken a toll on my feet and legs during the Ratae campaign in the summer and as such had brought no horse. I had no inclination to ride near Lancelot anyway and have him mock me in front of my men.

Dirandon would probably have liked to march besides me, or at least walk his horse alongside me but he insisted his knees could not take as much as they used to. He also wanted to keep his distance from me around the men so they would get used to looking to me for command instead of him.

I felt lonely as we marched. The men accepted me as their commander but there was still a distance between us, a chasm of inexperience and the unknown as well as the gulf in status. I did not know how to break it but knew instinctively that it was not an excess of stupid behaviour like I had done in Viroconium, and I wondered if I would have been better off in command of those young men who had been my friends there, salted with veterans like Aglovale. I was a natural leader amongst them, and many already followed me into all sorts of wildness in that city. But this would be different I knew.

The men were unsure of me, and I had a lot to prove I knew. Every man had a new device painted on his shield. As nobles and commanders of our own warbands now, Ambrosius had granted all three of us the right to bear our own badge. I sensed he had been less keen of allowing Lancelot to bear his own badge, but I believe he wanted to try and keep the three of us close to Owain. Whether Ambrosius liked it or night, Owain and Lancelot were the best of friends and it was likely, if Owain was to take up the mantle of High King, that while I would probably be Owain's right hand, Lancelot was like to be his left. It was important to keep the tie between the two men close.