Uther cc-7

by Jack Whyte

  The crowd had fallen back, away from the heat, and she could feel the flames searing her face even from twenty paces distant. Someone had dug an enormous pit in the centre of a vast, open space. It measured roughly ten paces to each side and extended four paces into the earth. As she saw it, a door to memory opened somewhere in her mind, and so she was unsurprised to see the enormous gallows frame that had been erected over it. She had once heard someone, either Ullic or Uric, talking about such a thing, although she had paid scant attention at the time. She remembered a description of wood soaked in pitch, of everlasting fires of Druid sacrifice.

  The great gallows frame reared up six or seven long paces in height above the top of the pit, and from it, suspended by chains, hung three wooden cages. Each of these was tightly packed with men, some of them evidently dead or unconscious, but most of them still alive—and screaming. The flames from the pit beneath, fed by the tarry pitch, had reached the cages easily by this time, and the wooden frames were all alight, the middle one burning far more fiercely than the two flanking it. As she watched, stupefied, there came a loud, sharp crack, clearly audible above everything else and the middle cage broke apart, splitting into pieces and hurling its living contents down into the inferno underneath. The unfortunates in the remaining cages, seeing the fate that awaited them and recognizing its imminence, began throwing themselves against the burning bars of their cages in despair. In another cage one side fell away, and a knot of men threw themselves immediately outward and down into the pit, disappearing from view in the incandescent heart of the fire. The thrust of their leaping and the shifting of their weight threw the entire cage out of balance and it tilted violently, dislodging even more screaming prisoners, some of whom leaped frantically outward, vainly trying to leap over the fire and land in safety on the side of the pit.

  Veronica watched them fall and disappear, melted into liquescent nothingness by the white heat at the centre of the furnace, and when she raised her eyes again towards the last surviving cage, all movement there had ceased. Everyone in that cage was dead, and it only remained now for the bars or the floor to burn through and release the bodies to tumble into the fire.

  Unaware that the screaming had ceased, Veronica continued to press her hands over her ears, but now she looked at the people surrounding her, seeing them leering and gibbering and gesticulating like demons in the aftermath of the horrendous slaughter. The faces that she saw with her flat, emotionless gaze were without exception vacant and ugly, empty of any humanity, devoid of any trace of sanity. These were King Ullic's Celts, she thought numbly, the people amongst whom she would now live, the people she had travelled so far to meet in this bleak place called Tir Manha. These were her husband's kinfolk and her future neighbours. Her destiny now lay in sharing their lives and their activities, living in their midst, learning their language and their customs and rearing her future children to conform to their ways and to observe their traditions: burning their enemies alive in wooden cages suspended over an enormous firepit in the dead blackness of a moonless night.

  She felt hands grasping her shoulders and turning her around, and then the searing heat was gone from her face, leaving her skin feeling stretched and taut as it was pressed gently into the front of a large man's tunic. She felt a hand cradling the back of her head gently, an arm stretching across her back from shoulder to waist and the breath from a man's lips soft against the top of her head. From the smell of the man's clothing, she knew it was her husband, Uric. She could hear nothing, and after a while Uric stopped trying to pry her hands from over her ears and simply held her close, rocking her gently for the longest time.

  BOOK ONE

  Childhood

  Greetings, my dear daughter:

  I have been thinking about writing to you for weeks now; making up snippets of things to tell you and composing entire passages in my mind as I go about my household tasks, but I sit down to it only now, almost afraid that I might be too late, and unpleasantly surprised, all at once, by how quickly time has passed since I last wrote! Last night, as we sat together before going to bed, staring into the fire, your father remarked that the leaves have begun to turn yellow, and pointed out that, before we know it, it will be winter, and both you and Picus's wife, Enid, will be facing confinement and childbirth. That shocked me profoundly, and my immediate reaction was to chide him for exaggerating. It seems like only yesterday that I was writing to you, describing my excitement over the newly delivered tidings that you were with child and would be giving us a grandson or a granddaughter at the start of the New Year. And now, so soon, your term is more than half elapsed! And that, of course, means that you have been a wife, a married woman and the mistress of your own household for almost two-thirds of a year, and for that entire time I have not set eyes upon you. How must you have changed in appearance, from the merry-faced, laughing little daughter whom your father and I loved so much and in whom we took such pride, knowing how close we had come to losing you completely when you were tiny.

  I was interrupted between writing those last words and these, and a full day has elapsed in the interim. Writing is a slow and sometimes painful process, for the hand is unused to clutching a stylus for so long a time. And yet Publius writes every day, for long periods each time, so I must believe that the pain wears off with practice. I do hope you are thriving and that your pregnancy is causing you no great discomfort. As you know, I had not a speck of trouble with you or any of your sisters at any time, except for the anguish (merely occasional, thanks to your father) of having failed to produce a son to carry on the name of Varrus. It is too late for that now, and so the name will die, I fear, with my dear Publius, for I know of no other males of the family Varrus now alive. Let us pray, however, that we need not think of that for many, many years. In the meantime, your father's pride and manliness, his heritage and all his nobility will live on in your children, and although their name will not be Varrus, their mother's blood will make them both Varrus and Britannicus, and they will reflect, in their natures, all the elements that made their mother's father the fine man that he is. But I was speaking of your pregnancy and wondering how you are bearing it. Most women, God be thanked, take the condition in their stride, suffering no ill from it at all. Others thrive visibly, blooming while they carry the child and achieving a beauty they seldom recapture in fallow times. And then again, there are the others, poor creatures who cannot sustain the role that has been thrust upon them and who suffer untold agonies and endless sickness through their entire term of carrying. These are the ones who, all too often, have Harpies awaiting their delivery and who too frequently die in childbirth. I know that this is not the case with you, my dear Veronica, or I should have heard of it long since, and I would be there with you now, instead of sitting here writing you this long and rambling letter. Your father is calling me.

  Well! Another day gone by. I begin to believe that, once interrupted, it becomes impossible to resume writing the same day. Yesterday, when I went to your father's call, I found that one of the young stableboys had been kicked by a horse. He must have been careless in some way, but we will never know, because he died without regaining his senses. He was only eight years old, and your father was very angry that the child had been left alone to do a man's work. We had a noisy and exciting evening of heated arguments and cold anger as he tried to discover the truth of what happened from a number of people who really did not know. Generally, however, your father is well, in radiant health and strong as a man half his age. He continues to spend the greatest portion of his time in his old forge, banging away at white-hot metal, all the while in danger of suffocating from smoke and noxious fumes. But he is happiest when he is there, so what can I, a mere woman, do to dissuade him ? It makes me smile to recall it, but there was a time when I thought he must regret that I had so little interest in his forge and what he did in there. I was wrong. I have learned to believe that your father is perfectly happy to have me stay in my place, here in our home, and allow him to do
as he must in his place of work. And when he comes home to me, as he always does, I never doubt his gladness at setting eyes on me. Now that is a gift I wish I could bestow on you, daughter. But the only person who can grant that gift to you is your own man, Uric, and the only means you have of influencing him to do that is to manage his home, share in his dreams, encourage his visions and love him.

  It is a beautiful day here, and the sky is flushing pink with the promise of a wondrous sunset. It is strange to think you might not be able to see it where you are, among the hills. It might be raining there, or be dark and foggy.

  Well, child, now that you are a child no longer, know that we love you none the less, your father and I. Carry your own child proudly and with gladness, whether it be boy or girl, and never fear about your ability to bear men- children for your husband. I produced only girls, but the women of our family have always been breeders of strong men, so perhaps I was an aberration. You, I am convinced, will bring forth boys. I will not insult you by asking you if you would come home to have your child. I know your place is there in your husband's land, as Enid's is here, in her husband's, even though Picus is away at war. I remind God every day and night, in my prayers, to keep all of you strong and healthy and safe above all. God bless you, child. You are in my mind and my heart at all times.

  Your loving mother, LV

  Greetings, my dear Mother:

  I overheard Uncullic this morning telling Uric that he intends to ride by Camulod on his way to wherever he is going in the week ahead. Thus, mindful of the enormous pile of papyrus you sent me recently, hinting that should I ever think to write to you I should not lack the means of doing so, I thought to take this opportunity to write and let you know that I am well and having no trouble at all with the burden I am carrying. The grandchild I will bring to you is all male. His strength and his lack of delicacy and consideration tell me that he could be nothing else but he has been well behaved, generally speaking, and I am quite sure he will cause me no insurmountable difficulty when it comes time to bring him out to face the world in which he must live. My dearest hope is that you and my father are both as healthy as I feel, because if you are, I should rejoice.

  We are caught up in the end-of-the-year celebrations, although Samhain, the winter solstice, has already passed long since, and the days are beginning to lengthen. Now that I am living among the Cambrians and have made their way of life my own, I am often astonished to see just how different their customs and celebrations are from ours. I can clearly remember sitting listening to Bishop Alaric on one bright, lovely summer's afternoon several years ago as he told us about the various ways in which the communities in the small territories wherein we live have come to use different ceremonies and rituals to celebrate the same important events throughout the year. Events like the solstices, when the sun reaches the limits of its flight and sets off again upon its return course. But even our beloved Bishop could not convey the scope of such differences.

  I know that our own tradition in Camulod is rooted in our Roman past. But the Celtic clans celebrate Samhain when we celebrate Saturnalia. I had heard the name before, and I recall that as a child I passed the Samhain festival with you and my father in two small communities that I remember lying to the south and west of Camulod. Neither of those two occasions, however, bears any slight resemblance to what goes on here in Cambria at this time of the year. And then recently, within those regions and among those clans where Christianity has spread, the rituals and the events we celebrate are changing every year. But all that matters is that we celebrate. It matters not what name we give to the celebration or how we observe it. The people are glad of the opportunity to celebrate something, anything, and they are ready for the pleasure. The crops are safely in, the fields are all prepared for winter, and the lagging year is drawing to a close amid the hope brought on by lengthening evenings and small unseen promises of greener, warmer days to come in a year that is entirely new.

  Not all of us in King Ullic's household are celebrating this year, however. There is one unfortunate woman here whose heart is sore and heavy, and where I, in similar circumstances, would be blessed and strengthened in time of need by my beloved husband, she lacks that source of strength and comfort. She has a husband, but he is a very different kind of man from mine. Her name is Tamara, and her husband, whose name is Leir, is a Druid. He is also related to Uncullic, a cousin of some kind. I have been told that his grandfather and Ullic's father were first cousins, born to the brother and sister of the first Pendragon King of the Federation, another Ullic, as you know, Ullic Green Eye, who ruled almost a hundred years ago. I wonder if that means he had only one eye? Or one green eye and one of another colour? But that cannot be, since all these Cambrian kings must be physically perfect. I must find someone to ask about that.

  I stopped when I had written those last words and walked away from my table, because I found myself writing nonsense. And my fingers were starting to cramp. They are blackened to the first knuckle with ink, too. Unlike you, however, I have been able to come back to the task the same day, for less than an hour has gone by since I stopped writing.

  I set out to tell you about poor Tamara and her trouble. I have come to know her quite well these past few months because, like me, she was with child, her first. Alas, no longer. Tamara is very small, a tiny wisp of a woman, but her child, a boy, was enormous, so large, in fact, that there were whisperings of twins among the elderwives here, before her time arrived. Twin births are not looked upon with favour among the Celtic peoples, I have learned, and this is particularly so among King Ullic's clans here in Cambria.

  As it turned out, however, and despite what the elder- wives might mutter during their shadowy gatherings, Tamara was unfortunate in that she bore no twins. Instead, she bore one single, monstrous lump of a boy who tore her cruelly while forcing his way, a month and more before his time, out of her small body That was four days ago, and poor Tamara remains abed, too weak even to sit upright. I am astounded that she has survived this long. Mother, she lost so much blood! I knew it was going badly with her. Anyone with ears knew that. And I wanted to do something to assist her in her terrible pain and loneliness, although I know not what that something might have been, but the elderwives kept me from the chamber, so that I could only listen to her screams and moans growing more piteous as she herself grew weaker. It lasted more than an entire day before the child was finally born, deformed, his head completely flattened on one side by some hideous mischance. In the normal way of things in this land, which can be frighteningly savage, the child would have been stifled at birth because of his deformity, but for some reason, concerning which it seems to me everyone is being very secretive, the elderwives were loath to kill him before consulting with his father, the Druid Leir.

  Leir came, eventually, although he had not cared to show his face during poor Tamara's travail, and he spent a long time alone with the child, who was his firstborn son. Everyone assumed that, being a Druid, he must be praying for the infant, but then when he emerged from the room, he refused to let them kill the boy. I know, because I have been told, that the elderwives were much surprised by this and greatly at a loss. It would appear, however, that Leir has great power, sufficiently great, in fact, to flout established custom, although I know not upon what it is based. I do know that no one dared gainsay the man. Uncullic might have, and many here expected him to do so, but for some reason, as King, Ullic chose to ignore the matter, and so the child still lives.

  Leir, unsurprisingly to me, has laid all the blame upon the unfortunate woman, Tamara. It is no fault of his, apparently, that there were problems with the birthing of his child; no deficiency could possibly apply where he and his are concerned. It is the woman and her evil, vicious ways that brought the child to grief. The obnoxious creature has ignored Tamara completely since the confinement began. And, if the truth be known, I think it possible that he has ignored her much longer than that. She is disconsolate, of course, but fortunately she is also
far too weak to really be aware of what goes on about her.

  There is something loathsome about the Druid, and my flesh chills whenever he approaches me. He has a slight cast in one eye and a formless vacancy in his expression. Uncle Caius likes to use the word vacuous to convey this notion of utter emptiness. He told me it means filled with empty nothingness. It is the perfect word for what I sometimes see in this Leir. There are times when, looking at his face, I would swear he is demented. There are very few who will talk about him at all, however, and that really surprises me, for Uric's people are a talkative clan, much given to minding other people's ways. Those few who will do so with caution and then have nothing really substantial to say.

  After four days, it now appears that the child, who has been named Carthac, will live, despite the wishes of all who hoped that he would die. Equally, it appears that his mother, Tamara, will die, despite the best wishes of her many friends.

  I am not at all afraid that the tragedy of what has happened to her might have any effect upon, or any similarity to, what will happen to me when my time comes within the next few weeks. Tamara's case was awful, but it was bred of her own tiny stature and the leviathan girth, weight and sheer size of the monstrous child she bore. I am much larger than she was, and my child is that much smaller. Besides, I have a husband in whose love I float like rose petals upon water, and he has a father who has known and loved me all my life. No harm will come to me here, and my child will emerge into the love and warmth of all his father's relatives. And he will thrive therein until he has the additional good fortune to encounter, at a very early age, the love of his mother's family, too. We have decided that his name will be Uther.