Divine Sacrifice, The

by Hays, Anthony

  Arthur rose in surprise. Bedevere quickly followed. Rhiannon began to rise, but Gwilym took her arm and guided her back to her seat.

  “Patrick’s death was necessary, sad but necessary,” Gwilym said. “He would have stopped me in my quest to continue Pelagius’s mission. I did what I had to do to protect my task. It was, he was, a divine sacrifice, dedicated to the glory of God.”

  “No!” Rhiannon cried, clutching Gwilym’s arm. But he pushed her away.

  “No, my girl! I have nothing to fear. I am under the abbot’s protection.”

  I smiled at that. “It is only natural, Gwilym, for a daughter to wish to protect her father.”

  At that, my old friend Coroticus turned pale and nearly passed out. He had not known.

  “So, that is it?” Merlin queried. “Lauhiir killed Elafius and Gwilym killed Patrick?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “And both are protected by the ancient laws of sanctuary.”

  Arthur grimaced. “Lord Liguessac, this is not finished. You cannot remain here forever. And you now have more to answer for than just the killing of three of my men. Malgwyn has shown you to be a murderer in your own right as well as a traitor.” He turned to Coroticus. “You, dear abbot, are risking the survival of your abbey by protecting these people. Of this, we have much more to discuss. Much more. Right now, I have a rebellion to put down. Bedevere!”

  “Yes, Rigotamos!”

  “Set guards on the old monachus and Liguessac. They may be protected by the laws of sanctuary, but that does not mean we cannot keep our eyes on them.”

  “Immediately, my lord.”

  “Rigotamos?” I did not know how Arthur would respond to my request, but I was determined in my course.

  “Yes, Malgwyn.”

  “I want a troop of horse to command.”

  Arthur, Bedevere, Merlin, Rhiannon, they all looked at me as if I were crazy. “Malgwyn, half your head is bloodied. You are not steady on your feet.”

  “Arthur, give me a troop to command or I will join the battle as a simple soldier. This you cannot stop.” At that moment, a heat rose in me, blocking out all knowledge of pain. I had felt it before, but never this strong. Blood. I wanted to soak myself in the blood of my enemies, and fatigue and the great wound to my head would not stop me. An energy coursed through me that could only be sated by my sword sunk to the hilt in the rebels’ bellies. This time, only death would steal me from the battle.

  To my surprise, Bedevere stepped forward. “Rigotamos, we need him. We are far short of experienced commanders. We have none of the other lords nor Kay.”

  “He is right, Arthur,” Merlin added.

  “It seems that I am outvoted, Malgwyn. May God have mercy on us and lead us to victory.”

  As we left the hall, Merlin walked up beside me and whispered, “You left a great deal out, Malgwyn. It was not very satisfactory, nor particularly logical.”

  I draped my good arm about his ancient shoulders and squeezed. “No, my friend, it was not. But the time will come. Trust me.”

  I leaned forward in my saddle and studied the ground as a beautiful sun burned off the early morning mist. I did not understand why the rebels had dithered and wasted a full day, but I was grateful for it. The delay had allowed me to mend a bit more and compose a message for my daughter, Mariam, and Ygerne, my brother’s widow and now Mariam’s mother.

  Our strategy was bold, and depended as much on Teilo’s and Dochu’s inexperience as on any faith in Lord David. Bedevere commanded our left flank, Arthur the center, and I the right. Illtud commanded our reserve, slated to enter battle only if David betrayed us at a critical moment or if the tide of battle turned against us in some other way.

  Our scouts told us that all was confusion in the rebel camp. The Scotti were still there; apparently the rebels had found some other form of payment. Their presence made our victory a chancy thing, but that there was confusion was good. I remembered, too well, the Scotti lord of the white and gold tunic. He struck me as a man of confidence, a man to respect in battle, and no fool. He would not spend his men on a failed cause.

  We moved in force down from the hills of Ynys-witrin and across the marshy levels. All of us, that is, except Illtud, who led his force far to the right. That provided him with the clearest and quickest avenue to enter the fray. Arthur and Bedevere were to make the primary assault, hitting the center and the left. When the rebel leaders began to pull troops from the right to reinforce, I would strike their weakened flank and ride up into their rear.

  I was proud as I watched our army take the line. Arthur, as was his way, rode forward, chestnut hair flowing behind him, unhindered by a helmet. Pausing for a moment, he pulled his sword, thrust it in the air, and declared in a voice that rang across the land, “For God and Brittania!”

  And then nothing could be heard but the screams of our woad-painted warriors and the thunderous pounding of horses’ hooves as they charged the rebels at the base of the hills to the north.

  Minutes later, as our plan unfolded, I too thrust my sword into the air. But my cry was a little different, and the words caught in my throat just a bit as I screamed, “For God, Brittania, and Llynfann!”

  And we charged.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Later, Arthur claimed that it was my assault on the right that sealed our victory. Whoever earned the triumph, the cost had been great. At the last, Teilo and Dochu had retreated onto the small hills just before the meneds. We surrounded them and they fought fiercely. The hills were littered with bodies as were the levels themselves. The blood mixed with the marshy ground, staining it a dark gray. The battle had been savage, and severed limbs and broken bodies were thick enough to walk upon without touching earth.

  I had personally accounted for Teilo, riding recklessly into his escort, my shield little more than splinters, and scoring a lucky blow with my sword, leaving his head hanging by a strip of skin. Arthur himself finished the job, ordering that Dochu’s and Teilo’s heads be posted on stakes as a warning to other would-be rebels.

  Riding down from the hills and back across the levels, I saw three oxcarts, manned by the monachi, searching amongst the bodies for the wounded. My men and Bedevere’s were stacking the dead. Some of Arthur’s were gathering wood for the funeral pyres. The Rigotamos had commanded that all of the men be honored, not just our own. “They are Britons after all,” he said, “even if their lords did mislead them.” His decree, of course, did not include Dochu or Teilo. Their carcasses would be left for the dogs and pigs to feast on.

  The Scotti commander had led his men away from the battle when I charged the flank. I suspected that he was halfway back to Hibernia. And David? He did not commit his troops until after we had broken the rebels’ backs. Then, he dispatched small detachments to chase down a few escaping soldiers. It was enough to placate Arthur but left the rest of us unconvinced.

  The moaning of the wounded and the creaking of the wooden carts and the sloshing of the wheels in the mud broke me free of my thoughts. I looked down from my horse at three monachi as they stopped to gather a poor boy whose leg lay gashed open.

  One of the monachi looked up at me; Gwilym, breaking sanctuary to help with the wounded. His eyes held no fear, only a stubborn challenge. But it was a challenge I had not the strength to take up. Not then. And the monachi, and our warriors, needed him too. Merlin had organized a camp for the wounded, but, sadly, most of them would die, many from loss of blood, the rest from putrefaction in their wounds. I rode past Gwilym.

  Arthur, Bedevere, and Illtud were together near the center of the battlefield as I trotted my horse into their midst.

  “Malgwyn! Your deeds will be sung in my hall!” Arthur was exhilarated. He was always like this after a battle, lively, bursting with words.

  I laughed. No doubt my companions would tell the bards of how I looked at that moment. Blood was dried in my hair and beard, my shield still tied to my half-arm, dangling in three pieces. And where blood was not, mud held sway. My sword s
howed the scars of a battle hard fought, both those from clashing swords and the blackish red of rent flesh. I needed to wipe my blade clean; blood would pit the metal.

  “With your permission, Rigotamos, I would return to the abbey to clean this muck from my body.”

  Before Arthur could answer, a voice behind me spoke, and it made my muscles tense as hard as rocks. David.

  “Well, Malgwyn, you have acquitted yourself well this day. I thought never to see you in battle garb again.”

  With both my sword and the reins in my one hand, I spun my horse around to face him. “I suspect, my lord, you never thought to see me again at all.”

  “Now, Malgwyn, why would say you that?” The smirk on his face made mine grow hot.

  Arthur and Bedevere froze. They had seen me like this before, usually just as someone was about to die. But, with great effort, I controlled the urge to hack the smile from his face.

  “That, Lord David, is a conversation for another day. But be assured that that day will come.”

  With that, I turned my back on him, a mortal insult, and rode toward Ynys-witrin and the abbey.

  The spare row of huts along the village street in Ynys-witrin looked empty and forlorn. At Merlin’s makeshift infirmary, the cries of the wounded drowned out all else. Rhiannon and the other women were helping as best they could. Coroticus, Ider, and young Gildas were circulating among them, trying to give them comfort in what for many was their final hour. I passed on by.

  My horse carried me up the slope to the vallum ditch and bank. Our soldiers still guarded the entrance, and they saluted me as I entered, giving me that stare with which the uninitiated honor battle veterans.

  Weary as I was, it took more than a little effort for me to dismount. When I opened the cowhide-covered door to Elafius’s cell, I almost immediately collapsed on the pallet and fell into a deep sleep.

  A day passed, and more. I ventured forth only to find food, and old Deiniol at the abbot’s kitchen kept me well supplied. I said little, and the monachi seemed to sense my need for solitude. No one said anything about my using the dead monachus’s cell. I would have been surprised if they had.

  On the second day after the battle, Arthur and Bedevere left with three quarters of the soldiers. They asked me to go with them, to return to Arthur’s castle, but I declined as did Merlin. “I am needed here, Arthur,” my old, wrinkled friend told our king. They thought I missed the telling glance that Merlin threw my way, but I did not. Illtud stayed behind as well with a sizable force, occupying Lauhiir’s old fort. Small rebel bands were still being spotted to the north.

  I took the day to walk to the top of the Tor, where Patrick’s two assistants had established a hermitage in the old bishop’s name. They had agreed with Arthur to keep the watch fire burning and to pass on any alarms. One was named Arnulph. I cannot remember the other.

  From where I sat on the Tor, I could see across the levels to the meneds in the distance. I could see the muddy, gray area where we had fought the rebels, and I watched as the smoke from the warriors’ funeral pyres made columns reaching to the sky. The constant wind carried that sweetish, sickly odor of burning human flesh. I sat there for a long while, thinking about Mariam, Ygerne, Arthur, Merlin. I thought of little Llynfann who did die well, of old Myndora in her ruined villa and her brother, the enigmatic Tremayne, and his daughter, Rhiannon. But most of all, I thought of Elafius and Patrick, two childhood friends whose lives had taken such odd turns all those years before.

  Just past the midday, I looked up to see young Ider trudging up the slope. He carried a bit of bread. Sitting down uninvited next to me, he hesitantly offered the bread and I took it with a smile.

  “I suppose you want to know things, my friend.”

  He pursed his lips and spoke falteringly. “Malgwyn, I do not understand all that has transpired.”

  “Yet you say you want to follow in my footsteps, as a seeker of these things.”

  The young monachus shook his head. “I believed so. I did. But how anyone could find truth and justice in this affair, I cannot see. I know of your assignment of guilt before the battle. It was not logical. It was not true.”

  I took my one hand and placed it squarely on his shoulder. “Sometimes, my friend, truth and justice are not obtainable, at least not in combination. Sometimes you must settle for one or the other.”

  Ider, his skin growing rough from the constant winds, was caught between boyhood and manhood, and could not see down the path before him. And he would not, until he had traveled the path a bit further. Such a journey was not one I could guide him along.

  He sat with me there, without speaking, as the sun painted its way across the sky.

  And when finally the sun began its descent beyond the shores of Hibernia, I stopped thinking, rose, and turned to young Ider. “You have been a good companion, my friend. Now, I must see to the end of this affair.” He started to rise. “No, Ider, I must complete this journey on my own.”

  His cherub cheeks fell. “Ider, you are a good and honest man. If events should place you in my position in an affair like this, remember that justice and truth often do not swim in the same stream.”

  With that, I walked back down the Tor. Satisfaction was not an emotion that I had ever truly felt when I had untied knots like these. This one was to be no different. Indeed, I felt only a great sadness. With a sigh, I sent one of the servi to alert Merlin. The time had come to put this affair behind me.

  I found Coroticus in his private chamber adjacent to his feasting hall. He was sitting before a small wooden table, reading a scroll by the light of an old oil lamp. As I entered, he turned and squinted at me in the dim light. I had forgotten how handsome he was, though his hair was now marked with great swatches of gray, and wrinkles grew from the corners of his eyes.

  “Malgwyn! How are you feeling?”

  “Unsettled.”

  Coroticus nodded. “The last several days would unsettle anyone. We have been pleased to allow you time to rest and recover from your exertions.”

  “And I am grateful for your hospitality.”

  “You are always welcome here, Malgwyn. You know that.”

  I sighed. “Perhaps not after tonight.”

  “I do not understand.” But he did. I could see it in his eyes.

  “Lauhiir did not kill Elafius any more than Gwilym killed Patrick.”

  “But they admitted to it.”

  “No,” I answered, sitting heavily on the abbot’s bed. “Lauhiir did not admit to it, actually. Gwilym accepted responsibility because he was afraid that Rhiannon had killed Patrick to protect him. I knew that she had not, but I would not embarrass her in front of her own father.”

  Coroticus nodded.

  “Lauhiir could not have killed Elafius. He would never have told me that Elafius was helping him with his tin smelting, and he would never have left the silver denarius there for me to find.

  “Elafius came to you with the counterfeit denarius. Perhaps he even told you that he intended to bring it to Arthur’s attention when he arrived. I doubt that he understood that you were Lauhiir’s partner in this, and I equally doubt that he understood that a rebellion was afoot. But you panicked. Elafius had to be removed before Arthur arrived.

  “Indeed, I suspect that the denarius was what you were searching for in his cell. The yew extract, I believe, was intended to make his death look natural, but his brittle old neck snapped. One of the other monachi was bound to discover the broken neck when they prepared him for burial. So you left the yew needles and berries. At the worst, I would find my way to Rhiannon, since it is well known that poison is a woman’s weapon. You did not know, then, that she was Gwilym’s daughter, did you? And you never expected me to cut his body open to see how much of the extract he had ingested.”

  His eyes narrowed but he did not speak.

  “What little Elafius knew was too much. So, you were in a corner. Patrick was on his way. You were helping an errant lord foment rebellion and you wer
e harboring Agricola, the last of the great Pelagians. Of course, Elafius was unaware of the last, though he certainly knew that Gwilym was a Pelagian. I doubt, by the way, that Lauhiir even knows what Pelagianism is. You had a choice: be revealed to an icon of the church or kill Elafius. Elafius lost.”

  “If that is true,” Coroticus began, his voice sounding a bit strained, “then why did I call you here to investigate?”

  “That puzzled me as well. But I was already on my way here with Arthur. You knew that I would involve myself in this. By sending Ider to fetch me, you effectively directed my inquiry away from you. Which brings us to Patrick.”

  “Gwilym admitted to killing Patrick.”

  “Only because he was afraid Rhiannon killed him. She knew the danger that Patrick posed to both of them. She had access to the tunnels to slip in and out without being seen. What Gwilym did not know was that when Patrick was murdered, Rhiannon was bedding me.

  “When I continued to show interest in Gwilym, and more especially when Patrick and I formed a coitus, you knew that your plans were in real trouble. Especially when Gwilym told you that he and Patrick had been boyhood friends. Patrick was not forgetful like old Elafius; he was of a sound mind. He would have recognized not only his old friend Tremayne, but the Pelagian he became, Agricola. Your position here would have stood forfeit. And Gwilym would have been exposed. Only you had reason to kill both men. Tell me, my lord abbot, did you consider Patrick’s death a divine sacrifice as Gwilym does?”

  For the first time in all the years I had known the abbot, I saw a truly brutal look on his face. “No, Malgwyn. I considered it divine retribution. Gwilym told me how Patrick had ravished the young girl. Rumors of some great sin of Patrick’s had floated across the land for years. But to finally hear it, well, I lost no sleep by killing that fraud.

  “So, you have figured it all out so neatly. What will you do now? Summon me before Lord Arthur? Go to Castellum Marcus and denounce me to Dubricius?”