Shadow of the King

by Helen Hollick

  So he went on, passing comment, making criticism, rankling Ambrosius with references to the quality bathhouse he intended to build. Ambrosius took several calming, deep breaths, blotting out the rambling monotony. Amlawdd, a bathhouse? How many times had Ambrosius endured this same boasted conversation?

  The water was becoming chill. The stoke-hole had not functioned as efficiently since it had partially collapsed a year past. The rebuilding had been unsuccessful, the quality of bricks poor, the mortar too soft. Shivering slightly, Ambrosius left the pool, settled himself on the couch for the slave to begin work with the wooden strigils, scraping away the sweat and grime, followed by massaging oil into his skin. The experienced kneading of taut, tired muscles brought a pleasurable, clean glow, marred by the raucous, indecent song Amlawdd bellowed while floating on his back in the pool, his rotund belly bobbing, visible, like a white, bloated corpse.

  “You have not enough flesh on you to keep a bed-flea occupied,” Amlawdd observed between choruses. “You’re thinner than my black-haired bitch from Gaul – and that’s saying something! A hayfork has more meat on it than she has. O… oh, for a feast! I stuffed the hare and stuffed the pig, and stuffed the girl who served it!” Fortunately for Ambrosius’s bruised ears the lewd song had only a further three verses and, his massage finished, he had the excuse to retire to the sanctuary of the changing-room.

  “Arthur has taken most of my best horses you know,” Amlawdd called after him, climbing from the pool, adding a comment that a massage would be the more satisfactory from a female body-slave.

  Ambrosius ignored him, was tempted to ignore the previous comment also, but felt obliged to answer. “It is the Pendragon’s policy to purchase good stock. You have the misfortune to have stallions that relate to the old breeding lines of Gwynedd.”

  “Purchase!” Amlawdd sat up, jerkily thrusting the slave aside, bellowed again. “Purchase? I think not! He took them, stole them, two weeks back! Eight of my best-bred colts and five mares. Said it was for tax tribute, pah! The bastard’s no more than a common thief.”

  Draping the final fold of his toga, Ambrosius called up a vague semblance of polite sympathy. “Taxation has always been a cause for contention.” His glint of amusement went unnoticed by Amlawdd, who was wriggling himself into a more comfortable position on the couch. “Harsh measures can even lead to uprisings, I believe,” he added, but again the sarcasm was lost. It had been Amlawdd’s suggestion to tax the Saxon settlers that had led to the beginning of Ambrosius’s downfall. That Arthur would make the same mistake was highly doubtful.

  The Pendragon was lenient in those areas where trouble could arise, took only from those who could afford to pay – and, damn the man, took within the bounds of reason, never too much, never more than necessary. Ah, but why should he worry over the failings of the past? Ambrosius had no wish to rekindle thoughts of leadership. There were a few, a mere handful of like-minded men, who would willingly donate a fortune to re-alight the flame of Rome, to return Britain to sanity and discipline. But to what point? Even Ambrosius had to admit, now, what was gone had gone. A clay pot once broken could not be mended.

  At least here in the calm confines of his stronghold, within the walls of his religious school he was his own master. A little piece of what was once the Roman way flourished here. Ambrosius realised that his mind had been wandering, that Amlawdd was still making complaint against Arthur. Huh, was he ever not?

  “We ought be looking ahead, I say, to securing our future. What do we do when he has gone, that’s what we should be asking!”

  It was a question they all mulled over, aye, even Arthur quietly, to himself. Who would follow the Pendragon, when death eventually came to claim his corpse?

  “There is Medraut, the bastard-born,” Ambrosius suggested.

  Amlawdd heaved himself from the couch, gesturing a crude sign of dismissal, stalked into the changing-room, began to dress. “We have two choices. We look to the daughter or to Cerdic.”

  Were the second option not so absurd, Ambrosius would have laughed outright.

  “She will not be far from reaching the age for breeding. Find her a suitable husband, get her with child,” Amlawdd said.

  “And you, I have no doubt, would be willing to offer yourself for such a role?” It was pointless adding that edge of mockery.

  At least Amlawdd had the decency to laugh. “Of course! I could not secure the mother, why not have a go at the daughter?”

  “The daughter,” Ambrosius replied, “has the promise of an even sharper temper, so I hear.”

  “My blade could cut her down to size!” Robed, clean, Amlawdd headed for the doorway, his stomach audibly growling for food and drink. He pointed nether-wards, indicating the blade he meant. “How was your last brewing of ale?” he asked. “Mine was poor, but I know you stock other stuff of a superior quality.”

  Ambrosius suppressed a groan. Amlawdd knew, full well, there was always sufficient wine.

  “Breed with the daughter, aye, but it would also be wise to nurture Cerdic.” Later, Amlawdd continued the conversation as if there had been no substantial interlude. They sat in Ambrosius’s private chamber, already one flask of wine had been emptied, refilled.

  “Cerdic has reneged to the Saxons.” Ambrosius’s pinched tone indicated that the subject should be ended.

  Amlawdd ignored the reprimand. “Cerdic is half-British. He wants a kingdom, would as easily return to being British if he knew he could have what he wanted. Have it handed him on a platter.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Nonsense, is it?” Amlawdd crammed the last of his meat pasty into his mouth, spoke while he chewed. “I have it from Cerdic himself.”

  XIII

  Ambrosius was uncertain whether his sense of outrage was that much more intense because the man – obese from an accumulation of years of overindulgence, crude-mannered and sprawling slovenly on the best couch – was either an outright fool or a serious threat. Had he heard aright? Had he truly understood what Amlawdd implied – that Cerdic could be, was willing to be, bought?

  “Cerdic has only one want. To rule as his grandsire ruled.” Amlawdd sublimely picked meat from between his teeth.

  Spluttering protest, Ambrosius rose indignant and angry to his feet. “Vortigern?” he bellowed. “Christ and all the holy saints! You would return us to that era of heretical darkness? For all Arthur’s faults, for all his petty annoyances and irritations, he has taken better care of this land than ever that poxed tyrant Vortigern did!” He took a breath, blustered on, “We have peace. Prosperity and trade are again rising, there is law and order in our towns… ”

  “I merely meant,” Amlawdd brusquely interrupted the tirade, “that Cerdic wishes to be king by right of inheritance. Bear in mind he could secure us a much stronger peace for he can dominate the English as no other British-born could.” Added with a sneer, “Not even Arthur.”

  “And you know all this?” Ambrosius barked. “How? Have you spoken with Cerdic? By Christ, if Arthur hears of this!”

  Lifting his buttocks to ease the discomfort of flatulence, Amlawdd passed wind, making the action sufficient answer to the threat. “Things will travel along one road or the other,” he said. “One day, Cerdic will have sufficient men to fight Arthur. The Pendragon is three and forty, Cerdic a much younger man, he will undoubtedly win. I see it as prudent to show favour to the fortunate now, rather than later. When it may be,” Amlawdd’s black toothed smile was obscene, “too late.”

  The horror of what he was suggesting made the blood run cold through Ambrosius’s body. As he reseated himself, he felt chill, his stomach, his guts, turning uncomfortably. Amlawdd was suggesting a treaty of alliance with the Saxons! By God’s grace and truth, was proposing that good, honest, sensible men declare for Cerdic! He swallowed vomit, felt the pain of the flux twisting in his guts.

  Amlawdd belched, stood, stretched arrogantly, drawing attention to the muscles in his arms, his strength. “Well, it was a tiring day
, I’ll be away to my bed, my men ought to have found a whore of some sort to be warming it for me by now. Think about it Ambrosius. We put Cerdic as supreme over Britain, and end all possibility of hostility. Or we look to having a bastard whelp, born of the father’s own sister!” He had strolled to the door, was buckling his sword and baldric into place. Ambrosius’s complexion had paled.

  “The boy, Medraut, is here in your school, is he not?” Amlawdd said. “Arthur bedded his own half-sister to get him. Did you not know? Ah, I see you did not.”

  Sitting, arms flopped, head tipped forward, mouth slight open, unbelieving, incredulous, Ambrosius attempted to digest what he was hearing. What evilness was being spoken in the tranquillity of his private quarters? What foul, devil-spawn had been set loose in Ambrosium? In Britain?

  “It is true. The mother told me herself.” Amlawdd opened the door, admitting the subdued night noises that drifted from the settlement beyond the outer walls of Ambrosius’s private compound. Men, the worse for drink, dogs barking, a young woman’s suggestive laugh, reminding him of Morgaine, a delicious woman! Regrettably, she had moved on, away from her hut by the causeway so closely convenient to Amlawdd’s stronghold. But then, she was not so far away, was more suitably placed for contact with traders – Saxon traders. Her whoring set so usefully near the busy, winding road to the lead mines. He might well take that route home.

  The bell hanging beside the monastery chapel on the far side of the compound tolled its calling to Compline.

  “There’s your God wanting you, Ambrosius. I’ll be away to the more enticing settlement. Of course, incest would not worry Arthur, he is a heathen, so is she for that matter. Neither of them care who, or what, they rut with. The brat could cause a problem though, do you not think? Do we really want such a creature as our King?” Amlawdd tapped his finger against the side of his nose. “Think on it. I am going with Cerdic, at least he was born from a good Christian woman’s slit, not spawned on the lust of a devil’s ride. I would rather not risk having my place in God’s kingdom tainted.” Amlawdd lifted his eyebrows, emphasising his point, left the room.

  Ambrosius could hear the mocking, the scornful ridicule that crept and slithered, black and soiled beneath the surface of the laugh that was not quite audible on Amlawdd’s tongue. Amlawdd. Confessed as a traitor! How many, like him, were tempted to turn to Cerdic? Cerdic, who ran like a rogue wolf with the Saex. Cerdic who had hacked his mother, a good Christian woman, to pieces with an axe. Cerdic, son of Arthur – and Medraut, the other son. Oh God in His wisdom, how many knew of this, this sickening thing about the boy?

  Ambrosius fell forward to his knees, his lips mumbling in fervent, desperate prayer. What to do! What to do? He vomited, the muck spewing onto the mosaic flooring, the mess staining the benign face of God, peering upward from the pattern of the tiled picture.

  XIV

  There was another boy who could be a valid contender for the royal torque when Arthur was gone. From the same family as Arthur, claiming right of succession from a past Emperor of Rome: Aurelius Caninus. Ambrosius’s grandson. How useful that he too, was a pupil of Ambrosium. Useful for Amlawdd’s purpose of setting his eggs in different baskets.

  For the immediate, it was Medraut who had to be dealt with. Medraut, for all his incestuous begetting, could become a problem in future years. Only the devout, the fanatical followers of this Christian God, would trouble themselves about the pedantics of kindred between a man and a woman’s intimate relationship. Of course, it was not encouraged, inbreeding was not a way to produce healthy sons, but then, it did ensure a purity of blood line. There was many a petty king or chieftain who had secured a line of inheritance through coupling with his own sister or daughter – men who would not oppose Medraut inheriting from his father for this reason alone. Ambrosius was such a dour perfectionist. You would always find flaws in man, especially where women were concerned. Did Ambrosius think old Caw to have been such a pure Christian? Hah! Not all those sons and daughters were born to legitimate wives or taken whores. Amlawdd knew of at least four children born to Caw on his own daughters. Cywyllog, that pinched-faced girl he had seen on arriving yester-afternoon being one of them.

  Caninus? If Medraut were out the way Caninus could become king once Arthur was dead. But who would back him? He might be properly born out of a coupling between legally vowed husband and wife – but who would trust the issue of a misshapen hag and a lame-legged father? There would be too many whispering speculation as to where the unseen twisting and warping would fall in the son. In the sanity? Or the spreading of his seed? Few would readily follow Caninus without someone to urge his acceptability, someone to guide him, advise him. Amlawdd would never be accepted as King, but the title Regent sat well in his mind.

  It was not by chance that he found the boy the next morning. Ambrosius was ill, confined to his bed. It was natural Amlawdd would seek out his grandson, express his concern for the other grandsire’s health.

  In his eighth year, Caninus was a tall, lithe boy. Brown-haired, hawk-eyed, carrying the trait of the Pendragon kin, the long, slightly overlarge nose. Easy to draw the boy aside, engage in conversation. And the main thrust behind its purpose falling like meat served onto a platter. Medraut came from the scriptorium, head down, a scroll clutched between his hands as he trotted in the direction of the latrines.

  But this was too simple! Amlawdd easily recognised the wrinkle of Caninus’s nose, the glint of sneered malice. “The Pendragon’s son,” Amlawdd vaguely indicated the lad as he turned a corner, disappeared. “I hear he is a most promising pupil.”

  “He is a bastard whelp, with the impotent balls of a mule.”

  “You do not much care for him then?”

  Caninus guffawed. “About as much as a pig cares for the slaughterer’s knife.”

  For a while Amlawdd altered the line of conversation, directing talk to hunting, fighting, things that would be of interest to a boy. Said, so casually, “You seem the better lad, the more capable; it is a shame Medraut has precedence over you. Were he not to survive into manhood, of course, it would be you to become the next King.”

  So easy done! Light came into the widening of the boy’s eyes, Amlawdd could almost see the thoughts whirling in his brain. King! Power. Respect.

  Amlawdd lightly patted the boy on the shoulder. “When you grow a little older, I would think about clearing the dead wood from your path, lad, were I you.”

  XV

  The new dwelling place Amlawdd had suggested she move to suited Morgaine well. This bothy was larger and more comfortable than the damp hovel that had stood beside the marshland causeway. For a bed, she had piled dried bracken and mosses scattered with sweet smelling herbs and covered by a thick, soft-woven blanket. There was a stool, a wooden chest for her few clothes, cooking pots and utensils, a selection of wooden bowls and two fine-made plates of Roman Samian ware. Both had chipped rims, but were serviceable enough. The wattle-built bothy was her public place, where she would sit and watch or dream when alone, and where her visitors came. They were frequent, the men who came to her, men who travelled the road to and from the lead mines. And the complex of caves that tunnelled deep into the White Hills behind were ideal for her private needs. At first, she had avoided the leer of the cave opening, going only to draw water from the river that rushed from the dark, gaping mouth, but eventually she had plucked courage to take up a lamp and duck into the darkness, using the rush of the river as her pathway guide. Several times she had gone into the darkness since then, using her tallow candles, thrilled yet scared by the crowding of the weight of rock above her, the mystery and magic of this deep, dark world. It was surprisingly warm and dry further in, once past the first cave with its mosses and lichens. She found things on the dry floor: pots, tools, animal bones. People had lived in here. For how long, and when, she did not know. And then she had found the underground lake, dark and mysterious, lapping against a small beach. She swam there regularly, delighting in its deepness and the co
ld bite that set her skin crackling and glowing as she rubbed herself dry after. It amused her that once again, even if only in secret, she was the Lady by the Lake.

  These inner sanctuaries provided her privacy; the pockets of eerie shadow gave her mystery and concealment to those who came visiting. There were the formations of rock that stabbed down from the ceiling or roared up from the limestone floor – places to hide behind and between should she not wish to entertain a guest; places of darkness from where she could listen or watch, unnoticed, unknown.

  The men would come to the opening, peer into the darkness, call out, wait a while then shrug and go. It was good to have their attention or not, as she chose. Those she did lie with were generous with their gifts of payment of grain or meat or fowl. Eggs, cheeses, bread, fish. A woollen cloak, an ivory comb. Morgaine’s reputation, once she had settled herself as Lady of the White Hills, rapidly spread along the road from the lead mines to the coast. She became the Enchantress, the woman who could pleasure a man and cure all ills, the faery woman who came up from the Underworld into the land of mortals.

  Once, soon after she had come to the caves, a man had not turned directly down the track after he had enjoyed her services, but had hidden, deciding to watch her a while. She had come out of the bothy and gone into the caves. Curiosity had overcome his fear. Scuttling into her dwelling, he had found for himself a lamp and some candles, had run after her, heart beating that she had already vanished, but he could see the distant pool of light from the flaring torch she carried and followed her, not knowing Morgaine was full aware of his noisy-footed, clumsy presence. He had then seen her, this courageous, or foolish man, had seen the Goddess herself walk naked into the water of the Underworld, had seen her black, raven hair streaming like rippling weeds against the darkness of the lake, her skin white and smooth – he had watched as she sank below the surface and did not appear again.