Dark North (Malory's Knights of Albion)

by Paul Finch

  Spoleto looked amused. It had not gone unnoticed by him that one of the knights in the British party wore the white leopard and blue livery of Lancelot du Lac, who it was said no man alive could defeat. “How interesting that you offer such a solution,” he said, “when our host outnumbers yours by almost five to one.”

  Kay shrugged. “A single combat between champions would be the chivalrous option.”

  A junior officer mounted alongside Spoleto removed his helm, revealing tightly curled white-blond hair and astonishingly youthful features, which now seethed with indignation.

  “Hiding behind chivalry, sir knight?” he scoffed. “There wasn’t much of that on offer when you captured the free-companies.”

  “The free-companies, what remained of them, were gelded to reduce their baleful temperament,” Kay explained. “Had I had my way, they’d have been branded and blinded as well, and each one forced to carry the stump of his right hand.”

  “There will be no combat between champions,” Spoleto said decisively. “If your king feels he has overreached himself, he must now pay the price of his recklessness.”

  “Then many men will die today because not a single Roman was brave enough to stand alone.”

  The young officer spluttered with anger.

  Spoleto merely smiled. “The festivities may commence whenever your king is ready.”

  “How gracious of you. But first we have a debt to repay.”

  Kay turned in the saddle and signalled. A gap appeared in the front rank of Arthur’s army, as men shuffled aside to permit the exit of a four-wheeled cart drawn by a single horse and driven by a single driver, who, rather dramatically, stood with legs astride as he lashed the reins. Those who recognised him would have been surprised to see the luxury-loving King Hoel of Brittany. He now wore full plate armour, but had removed his helmet and drawn back his coif so there would be no mistaking him.

  Hoel brought the vehicle to a halt thirty yards to the west of Kay’s party, drew a great, two-handed sword from the scabbard on his back and leapt down. In the back of the cart, two men-at-arms wrestled with a burly prisoner – a massive, misshapen brute, a savage animal more than a man, but less terrifying given the manacles that bound his limbs, and the single, bloodstained shift that had replaced his mail and leather.

  Hoel stood patiently as the men-at-arms dragged the brute from the cart, and forced him into a kneeling posture.

  “Let it be known to all here present that this fellow, Gorlon the Ogre, has been sentenced to death for crimes against the people of Brittany,” Kay shouted. “Let it also be known that in order to obtain a swifter demise than was planned, he has spoken in full about the events that brought these outrages to be, and has named the names of those parties who manufactured them. Those parties must rest assured that, once today’s matter is resolved, they too will share in Gorlon’s punishment.”

  Far back in the ranks of New Rome’s army, Tribune Maximion, who stood among the sturdy legionaries of his Javelin Cohort, glanced to his left, in which direction Emperor Lucius was visible on his snow-white charger. Maximion felt a pang of scorn to see the Emperor’s brow glint with sweat. A loud thunk drew his attention back to the front, where King Hoel was now using a cloth to wipe blood from the blade of his two-handed sword. Gorlon lay at his feet, his severed head about half a yard from his lifeless trunk. Once he’d re-sheathed his steel, Hoel clambered onto the cart and drove it back towards Arthur’s ranks. Sir Kay’s party also headed back, but the Duke of Spoleto’s group remained where they were, frozen, apparently astounded by the indignity they had just been subjected to. With a strangled cry, one of them galloped forth, lance levelled; the young officer who’d sat alongside the Duke.

  On a thinly wooded bluff to the east of the battlefield, Trelawna had watched the entire piece of theatre as though riveted. She had heard about the atrocities in Brittany. On learning about the free-companies’ demise, she had known there would only be one outcome for their leader. It was still a shocking thing to witness, but now it seemed there would be worse – for a knight, the very one carrying the lance with the white flag attached, answered the young soldier’s challenge, breaking away from Sir Kay’s party, wheeling his horse around and charging full-tilt.

  A finger of ice touched Trelawna’s neck.

  Even without that swirling mantle of black fur, that black livery, that black lance, the dark cylindrical helm with the black ribbon crest, she’d have known who this knight was. The taut, strong body hunched low in the saddle, his black kite shield covering almost the whole of his left-hand side, was unmistakable. The mighty black warhorse, Nightshade, looked even more monstrous than usual in its all-encompassing black trapper. The low trajectory of Lucan’s lance – all the better to catapult his opponent from the saddle – bespoke years of combat experience.

  By contrast, the New Roman officer sat tall, as if he were on parade. His shield was small and round, and only just guarded his left forearm. He wore a thick iron breastplate over a mail jerkin, and an elaborate burgonet sprouting a plume of blue feathers, which matched the colour of his regimental cloak and the breeches under his knee-length battle-skirt. His visor was down, but beneath that he wore only a leather hood, which fastened under the chin with a strap – so his entire throat was exposed. Even if he managed to raise his shield in time, it was so small and its metal face polished to such a shine that Lucan’s steel lance-point would likely careen off and still strike its target.

  Trelawna watched breathless as they careered towards each other. When the collision came she wanted to close her eyes, but something bade her keep them open. This young Roman was a stranger; he meant nothing to her, and yet somehow, for a very fleeting second, he had come to represent all the hopes and dreams she’d entertained since absconding with Rufio.

  There was a splintering crash as both lances struck their targets.

  The Roman made good contact, and Lucan swayed. But there was never any real danger of the knight failing to hold the charge, and besides, his own lance made far better contact – in the lower belly, packing more than enough force to hurl his opponent headfirst into the dust.

  The Roman staggered groggily to his feet, his helmet askew so that what little vision his visor allowed was now restricted even more. Lucan steered around him in a circle, wielding a second weapon – a morning star; a snowflake of edged steel on the end of a chain. He spun it in a blur as he bore down. The clatter of steel on helmet was shocking. They heard it on the wooded bluff, where the Roman ladies gasped with horror, many shielding their eyes.

  Trelawna did not. She felt she owed it to the young Roman to continue to watch as Lucan swept down blow after blow, each delivered with terrible force. This was the boy’s final moment on earth, and he had sought it with courage. His helmet was already battered out of shape, so that even had he not died under the sixth impact, dropping in a heap, blood surging through his buckled visor, they would not have been able to remove it from his head.

  Lucan wheeled his horse around again, this time to face the ranks of the Roman army. He removed his own helm, his pale features startling against the blackness of his garb. He held aloft his lance, its fluttering white pennant streaked with crimson.

  “Men of Rome!” He stood in his stirrups as his voice echoed across the vale. “Look how your disrespect has sullied a flag of truce? By this action you have set the rules for the day. And you will die by them. This I swear!”

  As Lucan cantered back to his own lines, to the cheers of his fellow troops, Arthur glanced at Bedivere. “I suppose that’s first blood to us.”

  Bedivere nodded, tight-lipped. “There’ll be no quarter offered now.”

  Eighteen

  MAGADALENA AND ALONZO’S cottage was located in a low, fertile valley on the Apennine road, just after the point where it turned inland from the Bay of Levante.

  The cottage was built from local limestone, its outer wall rendered with stucco, which Alonzo had painted white. Its roof was of dry thatch,
there was a small herb garden to the front, a chicken hatch to the side and at the rear a somewhat larger enclosure wherein they grew cabbages, broad beans and asparagus. Beyond that lay their main source of income: an olive grove covering some six hectares, though at present they could only sell their produce in local villages. They would be allowed to sell in larger markets if they had a license of trade, which was the main reason Alonzo was now in pursuit of full Roman citizenship. It carried all kinds of privileges: the right to vote, the right to hold public office and make legal contracts, and of course to operate a trading license.

  Alonzo and his wife were already self-sufficient on their tenant farm. But as citizens, they would find full financial security and independence. Maybe then they could buy this land, and perhaps extend it and add more livestock – goats, pigs, even a cow or two. Any future Alonzos or Magdalenas would have a true legacy to call their own.

  During the long, lonely days while her husband was away, Magdalena would often stand by front gate, gazing wistfully down the green, V-shaped valley towards the blue Mediterranean, one hand on her flat belly. Alonzo was a young man, but serious-minded. Many times she’d suggested they try for a child before they pursue their goal. But he was adamant that any child of his would be born a freeman with prospects, a citizen of New Rome.

  She rose with the cockcrow one bright summer morning, ate a breakfast of bread and beans, and went out to feed the chickens and water the vegetable beds. Alonzo only had another year and a half before his military service was complete. That was the offer Emperor Lucius had made to the serfdom of Italy – five years unblemished service in the Imperial militia, and citizenship was guaranteed. Alonzo had never been a soldier before, but Magdalena had no doubt when he’d first suggested it that he’d make a fine one – he was strong, resourceful and tough from years of working the land. Like so many Ligurian men, he was brawny of build with dark, sun-browned skin. He was also handsome, with flashing eyes and thick black hair. Much as she was, if she was honest, though she doubted she looked her best at present; working the farm alone meant short nights and long, hard days. Today would be especially arduous. The autumn crop was already ripening on the branches, but if the winter crop was to be bountiful some of the trees needed pruning. It was necessary but difficult work, and there would be plenty of it, but – as she kept reminding herself – only a year and half remained, and then Alonzo would be discharged from his legion in France, and their life together could truly commence.

  It was mid-morning when Magdalena went up to the olive grove carrying a small ladder. She’d bound her lustrous hair with a hessian scarf and fastened a leather girdle around her waist, from which Alonzo’s tools – knives, shears and a small saw – were suspended. She put on her animal-hide shoes, and donned the old skirt she had purposely split to the thigh to allow her to climb among the branches. It was not the kind of attire she hoped Father Pius would see if he passed the plantation on his donkey on the way to say Mass in the village, but work necessitated such things and most of the time she was alone here.

  She set about the strenuous task with her usual zeal, clambering lithely, cutting, sawing and snipping away as much dead and excess wood as she could find. In the midday heat, she rested. Under a particularly shady tree at the farthest end of the grove, she took her flask and sipped the clear, fresh water she’d collected from the mountain stream, and then ate salted ham on dry bread and a fresh, green salad which she’d picked in her herb garden. For a brief time, she dozed, lulled by the trilling of the cicadas.

  “Magdalena?” came a voice.

  She assumed she was dreaming – for it sounded like Alonzo.

  “Magdalena, where are you?”

  Magdalena’s eyes snapped open.

  Her brow glistened with sweat, her simple clothing sticking to her body as it so often did in the heat of noon. Had the temperature made her dizzy?

  “Magdalena?” the voice said again.

  She leapt to her feet, amazed, and peered down the length of the plantation, seeing a figure in trailing red robes coming through the wicket gate at the rear of the allotment.

  “Alonzo?” she whispered, hardly daring to believe it. She had not seen him since a year last Christmas. Excitement took hold of her.

  “Alonzo!” she squealed, lifting her skirts and dashing downhill, weaving between the trees, ducking under their low, spiky boughs. He too began to run, waving both his arms in his eagerness to hold her.

  She did not stop to think how this was possible. She could only assume that he had been given unexpected leave. Maybe – horror of horrors – he had been wounded in some way. But if so, he looked fit enough: his long, lean stride drove him up the slope, his heavy red vestments dragging behind him. Her beloved husband was home. She did not know how long for, but did that matter? When he’d first enlisted, they’d thought it would be five years before they saw each other again. If he could manage just one period of leave it would be a boon, but two? God was truly with them this day.

  And then she realised that it wasn’t Alonzo.

  They were ten yards apart, in the heart of the grove, when the glamour was lifted.

  The thing Magdalena had thought was her husband was indeed wearing a long red habit with a monk’s cowl, though it had fallen back as he had clumped uphill towards her, revealing his – or rather its – face. It stood eight feet tall. It had brutish, primal features coated in a shaggy down of silver-grey fur. Its feral eyes gleamed yellow under thick bone brows; its ivory fangs were bared like knives. It called her again, only this time it called in its true voice – a guttural, spine-chilling howl.

  Magdalena slid to a halt, her mouth locked open. When a scream burst from her, it rose and rose and rose. But it was no good, for the thing already had her, wrapped in its massive arms, pressing her slender form to its barrel chest, crushing the life from her.

  It was a mercy that she went unconscious as quickly as she did.

  The towering monstrosity tore loose the girdle from which her tools hung, and cast her over its shoulder before turning and striding back through the olive plantation. On the far side of the cottage, a black enamel carriage with a team of eight horses waited patiently.

  Nineteen

  THE SILENCE IN the Vale of Sessoine was eerie. Aside from a single fleecy cloud, the sky was pebble-blue. The midday heat possessed oven-like intensity.

  The two armies stood facing each other, motionless. The Romans filled some two-thirds of the great valley, rank upon serried rank, their arms and armour shining like mirrors as they diminished backward into a distant haze. So many were they that from King Arthur’s position their farthest end could not be seen. The eagles of each legion, and the flag-poles marking their cohorts, companies and regiments, stood upright in a rigid forest. Arthur’s host did not flinch at this prospect, not even from the sight of the papal gonfalon, the black Crossed Keys, billowing in the very middle. So the Pope had declared for New Rome, Arthur had told his men the night before. It was a blow, but popes came and went. The next one would be different.

  Arthur gazed along his own battle-front. The Saxons, that fierce northern people whose ancestors had butchered three Roman legions at the battle of the Teutoberg, were still in the foremost rank, unmoved by the merciless heat. The bright colours and demonic imagery with which they’d painted their circular shields – the green eye of Odin swimming in purple mist, the blue serpent Jormangandr woven amid gouts of orange flame, the white head of the horse Sleipnir rising through black twists of branches – were stark against their ring hauberks and the grey metal of their helms. Behind them, the ranks of chivalry waited; Arthur’s Familiaris infantry and the men-at-arms of his great retainers, their mauls, hammers and pole-axes at the ready. At the rear stood the peasant forces, every improvised weapon one could imagine clutched in their grimy fists. On either flank, Arthur’s archers, masked from the Romans, stood in deep phalanx, their great bow-staves not yet strung. They broiled in their steel-studded harness, but listened inten
tly or peered up from beneath their iron caps and brimmed helmets, eyes shielded as they assessed the angle and trajectory of the goose-shafts they would soon be discharging.

  And still the silence lingered. The two who had so far died lay prone on the sun-parched grass betwixt the facing armies. The blood glimmered where they had fallen. There would be more of that; everyone knew.

  With a shouted command, and a great creaking of cogs and timbers, the Roman artillery – in the first instance, eight great counterweight catapults, located four to either flank – began to discharge, timber arms smacking upright against crossbars, launching hefty payloads of shot. Cast-iron balls, two to three feet in diameter, hurtled forward, bouncing on the open ground in front of Arthur’s army, kicking up plumes of dust. The first rounds were range-finders, falling short or ricocheting over the heads of the waiting troops, but the second rounds were more accurate. Again they struck the open field, but further back, coming on apace and crashing into the waiting ranks, smashing shields, crushing helmeted skulls, shattering limbs. Arthur’s line held, but from either flank of the Roman army there were echoing thuds as the throwing arms snapped upright again. More projectiles were hurled towards his men. With cataclysmic impacts, fresh alleyways were ripped through them, littering the ground with broken, gore-soaked bodies. The gasps and cries of the wounded were soon audible all over the field.

  “Quite a pounding,” Arthur observed.

  “They could maintain this all day,” Bedivere replied. The Roman artillery train was organised and efficient. The Roman engineers would have stockpiles of projectiles to hand, with caravans of carts and wagons shipping more up from the rear.

  “Have the army lie down,” Arthur said.

  “Sire!” Bedivere protested. “That will expose your position.”

  “Bedivere, if they are content to waste their munitions in futile efforts to strike a single target, so much the better. Have the men lie down.”