The Iron Grail

by Robert Holdstock

  * * *

  The feast ended; the guests dispersed. Urtha indicated that I should take up my old lodgings in his hall and I accepted. I was exhausted.

  I was roused from sleep by a small hand on my mouth, a child gazing at me earnestly. She whispered, ‘Delight! Delight! I see a swan; I see her flying … My swan has come back to me!’

  And at that moment the warning wail of a horn on one of the watchtowers brought the fortress alive again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Stolen Ghosts

  One of the armies on the Plain of MaegCatha had managed to breach the western gates, a night host that now stormed into Taurovinda, horsemen and chariots wreaking mayhem as they thrust towards the nemeton, the sacred orchard. They carried no torches. Entering the walls they had at once become substantial and vulnerable to iron, and the Coritani, called from their hostel, were tackling the invaders with an equal fury.

  The chariots wheeled in a circle, javelins flew and arrows hissed through the night air. I saw Ullanna run into the fray, clad only in her riding trousers and her bronze-scaled cuirass. She dropped to one knee and began to shoot arrow after arrow at the invader, turning with each shot, devastatingly accurate by the spill and spin of bodies from their mounts.

  Horn calls from the east told of a similar attack there. The high walls of Taurovinda became alive with torches and the flash of arms.

  I kept a cautious distance, intervening only once: when an axe, thrown from horseback, struck Ullanna and sent her sprawling. The rider was straddling her in a moment, axe retrieved and raised to split her skull.

  Almost without thinking I summoned a giant, rabid wolf, set it on the man, watched as it bore him to the ground and began to worry at his neck. Ullanna scrambled to her feet, looked round in alarm, failed to see me and returned quickly to the task of shooting, exhausting her quiver and running, head down, for cover again.

  I released the wolf from the dead man, but the beast stayed! I watched in surprise, then alarm, as it carried its prey through the mêlée and through the gate, down the winding road and out towards the willow marshes, no doubt to enjoy a feast of liver.

  Who had taken over my charm?

  Delight! A swan is flying …

  Munda’s words shrieked with laughter at me. Niiv was here! She had managed to scurry through the affray and enter Taurovinda, and was here, close to me, watching me, stealing my powers even as I closed them down.

  Riders thundered past me, chariots squealed and overturned. Manandoun and his guard loomed before me, swords drawn and shields discarded, ready for the hard fight: Manandoun saw me and urged me out of the way.

  ‘Have you seen that girl? The Northlands girl?’ I screamed at him. He was already summoning the blood rage, his face suffused, his eyes beginning to glow. But my words attracted his attention for a heartbeat, and he pointed behind him.

  ‘Yes. She has dyed her hair black and is wearing swan’s down on her shoulders. She was running to the nemeton. Never mind her,’ he added fiercely. ‘The Riannon gate is holding. Come and bring your skills here, Merlin! Conjure an army to sweep them back to their graves!’

  He laughed, knowing that my response would be inactivity. He knew me well, this old friend of Urtha’s. He performed the War Feat of the Foot and the Sword, then, and became possessed of the fury that would allow him instant access to Ghostland if his breath should be stolen.

  The Coritani mercenaries, despite their complaints about the lack of payment for their services, had held the western quarter of the stronghold, though they had paid a brutal price, battered and beheaded by the desperate Dead.

  I circled the orchard, ascending the ladder to the eastern wall, to look out across the widest stretch of the plain. It was alive with fire and movement. The struggle below me was implied by the press of torches, the warrior bands pushing towards the Bull Gate—they had breached the Bull Gate!—fighting to bring down the second of the totem barriers on the causeway, but failing.

  Distantly, a line of men on horseback stood silently before the tents that we had come to believe to be the royal enclosure.

  They watched us from behind black, Greek Land helmets, lances held low, shields slung across their backs. White-winged hawks fluttered and struggled from tethers on the left arms of this small band of knights. Oddly, I sensed they were disturbed. One of them was struggling to control his mount, though the animal’s restlessness seemed to stem from its rider’s nervousness. He kept looking towards the river. His helmet flashed with gold.

  Bright fire blossomed by Nantosuelta. I could see the top of the mast of a small ship, and had no doubt at all that Argo had tied up at the mooring.

  There was something strange in the air, though, an ethereal glow, a shifting of space between the fortress and the evergroves.

  Then, on the night air, came the unmistakable scent of the Northlands enchantress; I would know that perfume anywhere. I turned quickly, expecting to find her right behind me, but she was still in hiding. In the orchard, Manandoun had said, and when I walked the perimeter, outside the tightly woven wicker wall that enclosed the sanctuary, I soon found the gap—no larger than a fox would make—where the girl had forced her entry.

  She was lurking on the other side, hunched up, holding her breath, waiting for me to come through. Instead, I pushed the broken wall back into position, blocking the hole. I heard her little grunt of annoyance. A moment later the wall buckled outwards, bent under a fierce blow. A second strike, then the wall split open and the fierce-eyed, dark-haired girl stood there, furious with me for a moment, then running to me.

  ‘Merlin! Don’t avoid me! I need you!’

  ‘That must have hurt,’ I said to her, indicating the wall. I took her hands; the knuckles were skinned and raw. But she hadn’t had the physical strength to make that breach alone.

  ‘You keep using your power for such trivial things,’ I said wearily. It was true. She was wasting her young life. It was so important to harness and conserve what powers of enchantment one possessed, especially such small charm as was held by so insignificant a charmer as Niiv.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. She clung to my arm. ‘Jason is here. The ship…’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘the ship delayed us. I knew what she was doing. But he’s here now. He thinks you will know where Little Dreamer has been hidden. He says he’s lost one son, but he will not lose the other. If you help him, perhaps he won’t kill you!’

  ‘He won’t kill me.’

  ‘He will! He can! He thinks you’re in league with Medea.’

  I almost laughed at that, but the pain of Medea’s own deceit still tore at me.

  Niiv held me tightly. She was shaking. ‘Keep me close,’ she whispered. ‘I promise not to look into your future again. I promise to keep my nose out of your business.’

  ‘In the same way as you just sent my wolf out of the fort?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t resist it. I only meant to tease you; to let you know I was here.’

  She was dangerous. She was not in the least bit vulnerable. She was not in the least bit truthful. But I remembered the words of a Cimmerian chieftain I had once known: keep the untrustworthy in clear view.

  I had no time to ruminate further. The screech of battle at the western gate had dropped to a murmur. Horns sounded from the Riannon gate and there was a general movement of men towards the wall overlooking Nantosuelta. Ullanna bounded past, clutching her bow and empty quiver, hair streaming. She glanced nervously at Niiv, then at me, and shouted, ‘They’re withdrawing. What’s happening?’

  From a watchtower, Urtha’s voice boomed loudly: ‘Merlin! Argo! Quickly!’

  I had a sense of what those three words meant and climbed the ladder to the ramparts, Niiv keeping close behind me. If I laughed as I looked out on to the plain it was with surprise and admiration for the ancient, clever ship.

  The night host was in disarray. The winding ceremonial path, from Nantosuelta to the fortress, was now a gleaming
river! Argo sailed that twisting waterway, her oars rising and falling to the steady beat of the drum. Rubobostes was making the strike. Jason stood in the prow, staring up at the hill, searching the small faces above him in the night for features he knew. If our eyes met, it was for an instant only.

  Niiv was breathless. ‘Mielikki! My mistress! She’s made the river reach to the gates!’

  But it was not Mielikki who had created this living dream, I suspected, but clever Argo herself, the Spirit of the Ship, older even than me. She had, in my recent experience, sailed up rivulets no wider than a fallen tree. She could bend the world of water to her whim. She was an enchantress in hull, mast, prow and stern; the oars that drove her were legs and wings, fins and fingers, taking her where she wished.

  She also knew what she was doing. As she moved serenely along the path that was now a river, so the Shadows of Heroes gathered in their clans, picked up their weapons, and rode or ran from the Plain of MaegCatha. They were alarmed and disorientated. There was confusion in their ranks, and dismay as well.

  They fled to the south, away from Nantosuelta, pouring into the marshes and the tangled groves of willow that covered the western land for as far as the eye could see. Watching carefully, I noticed that the brutal army of the Dead rode in one direction while that of the Unborn, on their heavier horses and in their strange armour, took a different route.

  Only the white-hawked elite remained.

  When the plain was clear they released their birds of prey, swung shields to the fore, kicked their grey ponies and galloped towards Argo as she came slowly on. Jason turned to face this band, reaching for a sword. At the last moment, as they closed upon the ship, all but the leader peeled away, following the flight of their comrades to the south. This one man cast his javelin. It took true flight, striking Jason where he stood, knocking him back, almost over the side of the ship. But he had been prepared for this, his breast protected by a thick layer of leather and wood. He wrenched the spear from his armour and as his attacker, screaming fury, reared and turned on his frantic steed, so he flung the weapon back. It hit the rider in the side. Again the weapon was tugged from the wound, this time held aloft in defiance.

  ‘You are not the one!’ I heard the young man scream again in the language of old Greek Land. ‘Not the one! Not the one!’

  Four chariots, torches streaming from their sides, had sped from the Bull Gate, sending a spray of water from the illusory river that now flowed through it, and turned to pursue this shadow knight from the field of the Battle Crow.

  He outdistanced them easily.

  Argo slowed but kept moving. The oars were shipped. Jason jumped to the bank, throwing his cloak back across his shoulders. Rubobostes, too, leapt for dry land, then the dark-featured argonauts gathered their shields from the hull and clambered from the vessel. Argo, however, kept moving. She breached the gate and was swallowed by the hill, sliding into the earth below our feet as easily as dawn mist is swallowed by the forest.

  Everything was suddenly very still.

  Niiv was shaking. She clutched my shoulders as she huddled behind me, staring down at the scene below. ‘Tell him what he wants to know,’ she urged me.

  The narrow focus of her thinking did not surprise me. I asked her if she had just seen what had happened.

  ‘Yes. Jason has found you. Argo has worked her special magic. Merlin, you’re in danger!’

  Taurovinda had been under siege for months. The oppressing forces had disappeared like will-o’-wisp the moment Argo had opened the old river to the hill. What had frightened them? A ship? A man? What could have had the effect of breaking the deadlock? What had sent the night host fleeing back to Ghostland?

  ‘You are disturbed,’ the girl said, clawing at me. I smacked her fingers away. Jason was leading his men into the lower enclosure, escorted by two chariots. The harsh sounding of the horns and the harmonised singing of women was the music of welcome. Urtha, wearing the grey-fur cloak of the High King, called to me. He had descended from the tower and waited for me below, his proud son Kymon by his side.

  ‘What in the name of the Good God is going on, Merlin?’ he shouted.

  ‘Time will tell.’

  ‘Open your eyes! I need to know!’

  Niiv laughed. ‘Everybody needs Merlin. Merlin can see into hills!’

  I didn’t like that. She was right: in moments of crisis it was always assumed that I could turn a trick, fake a wolf, magic a spear, glimpse a secret. And sometimes I could, and sometimes I couldn’t, but all of these things cost me, and I was not prepared to bear that cost unless I chose to do so. Urtha’s tone had made my blood pulse with anger, and Niiv—wretched nymph—had sensed that human failing. I did not want her under my skin. I certainly didn’t want her fingers feeling along the carvings on my bones, touching the secrets of my birth.

  I had to judge this moment carefully. Urtha’s frustration was understandable. He simply couldn’t comprehend why the host that had almost worn him down had so suddenly withdrawn. He was both elated and angry, relieved and confused. As indeed was I. But I couldn’t have him thinking that I was there to perform at his whim. I’d thought we had established that on the long quest to Delphi.

  He needed a reminder.

  But when I stalked up to him, ready for the argument, he put a hand on my shoulder. Xymon has just told me that Jason is a danger to you. Don’t worry, old friend; no lank-haired, grizzle-bearded Greeklander is going to insult a favoured guest of mine within these walls. But what is happening here?’

  ‘If I knew, I would tell you. If I knew a way to see the truth, I would try to see it. But there are cloaks around us, Urtha, cloaks that confuse our sights and senses.’

  I watched his face. He thought hard for a moment, frowned, then suggested, ‘We are being beguiled? Not everything is as it seems?’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  He jumped to a conclusion with which I could not argue. ‘Your fierce-eyed fuck: Medea.’

  ‘My lover of old,’ I corrected more pleasantly. ‘She certainly has a finger in this storm of strangeness. But Jason’s arrival has set up a storm of its own. It’s to our advantage at the moment, but you’ll have to give me time to understand what’s happening.’

  Urtha grunted. He looked down at his son; son looked up at father. Their expressions were the same: hard, accepting, slightly disdainful. Like echoes, they shrugged and looked back at me.

  ‘In the meantime,’ Urtha began, but he paused as he saw my suddenly weary look. ‘What?’

  ‘A feast, are you going to say? A feast of welcome?’

  He was astonished. ‘At this time of the night? Has the moon kissed your mind?’

  ‘Thank the Good God for that, at least.’

  I felt relieved for the small family of boar that were confined on the southern flank of Taurovinda. I’d started to believe that the Comovidi did nothing but fight and feast.

  ‘The feast of welcome will be at dusk tomorrow,’ Urtha concluded. ‘In the meantime, I must make sure you’re safe. And that Jason and his men are properly lodged. Shall I take this carrion-eater off your hands?’ He looked hard at Niiv, who sheltered behind me. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Urtha added.

  I don’t.

  The Riannon Gate was opened at that moment, and by torchlight the thunder-faced argonauts entered the Thunder Hill.

  * * *

  I watched them from cover. As I had noticed from my seabird flight (an age in the past, it seemed now) there was something very sinister, very wrong, about several of the cloaked men who stalked in behind Jason. Rubobostes was as I remembered him, save for the fact that he looked weary and hungry. Four others looked around sharply as they came through the gate into the welcoming enclosure, as if searching for opportunity, though more likely they were looking for signs that they could sleep for a while in comfort.

  The other six were drawn and haunted, shadow-eyed, olive-skinned, only half alive. The six of grim demeanour.
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  It was the work of a moment to glimpse their thoughts and realise what Jason had done. One of them sensed my presence and glanced angrily towards me. I stepped into the darkest shadow possible, one thought on my mind. How had Jason managed this? Not alone; someone had helped him. Athene’s sweet breath, please not Niiv, not the silly, prowling, predatory girl … She couldn’t have willingly brought herself this close to death!

  Niiv sensed my sudden alarm and tried to slip away. I grabbed her wrist, tugging her close. ‘If this is your work, you little fool, you’ve lost everything. Everything!’

  ‘Not mine. I swear. I knew who they were. But I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Then how did he manage it? How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I let go of her and she scurried off into the night, a small creature seeking safety.

  Urtha greeted Jason with formal hospitality. His house was Jason’s house; there was room on the floor for all his men for the rest of the night.

  Jason acknowledged the gesture, then asked, ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Yes. And like you, he’s a guest under my roof. I keep a peaceful house, friend Jason. If you try to kill him, I’ll have you killed.’

  ‘Plainly spoken, Lord Urtha. You may rest assured. I have no intention of killing him.’

  He looked around in the torchlit night, and soon his gaze found mine. He stared at me for a few moments, then turned away. I heard him say to Urtha, ‘A few old friends of Merlin’s are here as well. He has a lot in common with them.’

  ‘That is a subject for a later discussion. For the moment, I’m intrigued to know why the sight of Argo has sent our enemy scurrying back to their grave-mounds.’

  * * *

  I shared Urtha’s puzzlement. Unable to rest, unwilling to sleep in the king’s hall alongside Jason, I prowled the battlements until the moment dawn began to break across the forest to the east of MaegCatha. All sign of the Ghostlanders had gone; it was hard to realise that a force of three hundred or more had been encamped there for the better part of a season.