Arthur Invictus

by Paul Bannister

  “Have you considered being baptized as a Christian, lord?” he almost quavered. Well, I had, and it was not a happy thought. I could pay lip service to the Jesus god, I supposed, but my little pagan Guinevia would regard it as a huge betrayal. Her spiritual advisor Myrddin would merely laugh and see it for the opportunistic change of colours that it was.

  I cast my mind about to think through the other politics. My soldiers wouldn’t care, the people generally would neither know nor be concerned so long as there was peace and no new taxes. The pagan Gauls, Belgae like King Stelamann or Huns like Khan Busfeld wouldn’t be affected. To them, it would merely be paying pragmatic homage to just another god. Improved the chances, didn’t it?

  On the positive side, Queen Emiculea of Armorica and her large Christian contingent would be delighted. The pagan Picts might be unhappy, but they were usually malcontents anyway. Candless, who was one of them, was looking at me dolefully, waiting for an explosion of anger. “I might,” I said, and his jaw dropped.

  It took less than an hour for the word to go around. Guinevia swept in as I was reviewing our fleet strengths with the tribune Grimr. She launched words at me like a javelin attack, and my big hound Axis tucked in his tail and slunk outside.

  “You are going to become a Christian?” She said it quietly, but it struck home with power.

  I shuffled my feet. “I may have to,” I said. Even to me, it sounded lame.

  “And why?” she hissed.

  “I need their troops.” Grimr, a big Suehan sea raider who feared no man, was sidling quietly out of the chamber. He knew the druid’s fury could damage us both. I glanced at the air above Guinevia’s head. No small cloud had formed, so she was not doing magic. “Sit down,” I invited her, “and I’ll tell you about it.”

  Eventually, Guinevia nodded at me. “The true gods will know what is in your heart,” she said, “and that is what matters. Do what is politic for your kingdom and do it with a clear conscience.” I sighed, it was sensible. Then she said: “Now I have a mission for Bishop Candless. He can preside over your baptism as a Jesus follower, and he can at the same time conduct our son’s wedding, when he will become heir to the Pictish throne.” It was my turn for a dropped jaw.

  Chapter XX - Kinadius

  Time was not on our side, so the wedding went forward rapidly. Our son Milo was now 14 years old, a tall quiet youth with an iron streak of determination and a fierce mental focus he must have inherited from his mother. We were going to forge the union of two kingdoms, my empire of Britannia and my vassal kingdom of Alba, land of the Picts and Gaels. On the death of Alba’s ruler Kinadius, the crown would pass to Milo.

  Milo’s bride Sintea Valens was a Gael princess as dark as he was fair, the daughter of the powerful Votadini chieftain Kinadius mac Ailpin, a conqueror whose kingdom extended down the eastern coast from the firth near Eidyn’s Burh almost to the Wall of Hadrian. Kinadius and I had agreed a treaty of mutual aid. He would supply warriors for my campaigns, I would do the same for his, but the reality was that his fellow chieftains would be unlikely to brave his wrath now they knew of his alliance with the imperator.

  I respected Kinadius, a burly moustached man with long dark braids, blue tattoos and a clear vision of what he wanted. He had established himself as king of all Picts and planned to found a dynasty.

  Guinevia had analysed the politics of the tribes and clans with the knowledge she had as a Pict princess in her own right. Her chieftain father had been cruelly killed by traitors, but they had been taken, executed and their lands forfeited to me, and hence to Guinevia and our son, as the Picts practised matrilineal descent. The tribes accepted Milo as the head of Guinevia’s royal family and after this marriage that would join the families, he would ascend to the throne of Alba on the death of Kinadius.

  Until then, Kinadius would rule his own and Milo’s lands, and he appointed the Pict warlord Briant Baric as subject king over my son’s territories. When the pacts were agreed, I heaved an inward sigh of relief. Kinadius was not to be trifled with, even though he was my vassal. He had taken the title ‘Rex Pictorum’ from a chieftain named Oengus who had declared it his own, a claim for which Oengus paid with his life.

  Once we had tied our nations together with this marriage, I hoped for an end to the Picts’ constant internecine warfare and better still, an end to the destructive raids across the Wall that they so enjoyed. Kinadius might be a blood-stained strongman, but sometimes it took a brutal soldier to enforce a peace.

  It was appropriate, therefore, that the onetime warrior Bishop Candless would conduct the wedding ceremony. The now magnificently-robed ecclesiastic, whose surplice over his cowled habit glistened with gold thread and precious stones, was a splendid churchly sight.

  “Got your fingers in the collection boxes, I see, Iacomus,” I growled quietly. He had the grace to blush. Not so long before he had been a ragged-arsed Painted Ones clansman fleeing my soldiers. He had converted himself into an evangelist after stealing a monk’s habit and accoutrements. Today, he was travelling for God and for me, using a fake icon and recruiting a Christian army I could take to Gaul.

  He gave me back a whispered: ”I’ll wash away your sins, Caros, you pagan.”

  I grinned. He was no true Christian, merely a pretender, but I would have to pretend to be one too, if I wanted those troops. “Don’t trip over your frock,” I said. We were standing in the stone forecourt of the keep of the hillfort Dunpelder, a vast and ancient stronghold that so dominates the estuary of the Forth that fishermen use it as a landmark.

  It was the first day of March, we had waited two weeks because marriages made in February are so unlucky that they are actually forbidden to Romans. I was fretting at the delay because I wanted to begin our campaign into Gaul, but this alliance was a keystone in the construction of my plans. Tomorrow, Kinadius would transfer his daughter to Milo, and the handfast ceremony would seal our new alliance. And tomorrow, with the assembled clan chiefs and some Christian notables present, I would publicly assume my new religion as a Jesus follower.

  Sintea came onto the forecourt, accompanied by several of her maids. A vivacious, dark-haired girl, she was bubbling with the excitement of her upcoming betrothal and was singing. As she saw me, she stopped her song, swept a dipping bow to me. “My lord,” she said. I returned the courtesy.

  “Is everything going as desired?” I asked.

  She giggled. “I am to have my feet washed,” she said. It was a tradition that the bride’s feet were cleansed the night before her wedding, so she would step freshly onto the marital path. I pretended horror, and she giggled again.

  “My maids will protect me,” she said.

  “If that boy of mine doesn’t protect you, I’m sure your maids will,” I smiled back at her.

  “You’d better come to the wedding to see,” she teased.

  Fact is, I was looking forward to viewing a Pictish wedding. This one was held in a Christian church, as Candless had insisted I call it, though it was once a Mithraic temple. The images of the old god had been clumsily expurgated, so I felt his presence was still comfortingly there. The place was decorated with greenery, fresh rushes were strewn on the floor, there was a small choir of women and Candless had chosen to display his recently-finished, ancient and sacred artefact, a face of Christ that was alleged evidence of a miracle. It certainly seemed to impress some of the congregants. All was in place.

  I noted a blonde woman standing to one side of the altar, fussing with the drape of her gold-threaded robe. She looked familiar, and I nudged Guinevia.

  “That’s Claria Primanata, the artist,” she whispered. “She oversaw the work on the Fishbourne palace. She is an adept of the oracle of Apollo at Claros. She is to give a blessing.”

  Good, I thought. At least, my son would get a pagan blessing, too, during his Christian ceremony. I remembered the woman. She had been present when I met Maximian in Rome years before and had treated the man who was to be emperor like a slave. I’d seen him
simpering and smitten at her haughty dismissal, and I recalled his hissed threats when he thought I was a rival for her. It was curious that she was here. I wondered if she was spying. At that moment, the choir broke into song, and the ceremony began.

  Sintea made her bridal entrance in an ice-white long tunic that stretched to her kidskin-slippered feet. She was escorted by her father King Kinadius, who glared around in challenge, and grasped his sword hilt but no eyes were on him. Sintea, white arms bared and ringed in gold, wore a flame-coloured veil with a wreath of snowdrops on her head. From it, her black hair flowed to her waist. Around her neck was a heavy gold torc; at her waist, her tunic was held by a fine silken cord tied in the knot of Hercules, symbol that only her lawful husband could unfasten it. Milo, whose hair shone with a nimbus of sunlight, was standing waiting in the transept, and I saw his eyes widen as Sintea made her approach. I was proud that he stood tall to the king. Nor did he not falter when he was ceremoniously given the hand of his future wife, as she went from being the ward of her father and was passed into the care of her new husband.

  I glanced at Guinevia, who dazzled me even in the muted gown of dark blue Roman silk she had chosen, not wishing to outshine the bride. Apart from her druidical ring, her only ornament was the golden necklace of an adept of Luna and Sol. I saw a sparkle of tears in her eyes as she viewed our son standing tall and handsome at the old stone altar. My heart ached for her. The old Guinevia was back after the nightmare of her kidnapping had opened her to the vengeful prompts of her goddess, and she had for a while turned from being a gentle, academic Druid to a vengeful sorceress driven by a powerful and evil deity. I had appealed to her mentor Myrddin to intervene, but that mischief-making wizard had shrugged that the witch goddess Nicevenn would release her when she was ready and he had gone back to his necromancy. He was trying to establish contact again with the dead queen Boadicea.

  On an intuition, I twisted to scan the whole temple. Discreetly high in the hammer braces of the roof timbers was the small white cloud which indicated Guinevia’s own sorcery was at work. She caught my thoughts, and half-turned to smile at me. Positive, good magic was flowing and her pentagram ring glowed. Somewhere, I supposed, a white rat was watching. The gods were close to us in that place and in those days.

  Before us, Candless – I still had difficulty thinking of him as a bishop – muttered his dog Latin, gently tied the young couple’s hands together as symbol of consent to their handfast status, paced them slowly through the ancient vow of ‘When or where you are Gaia, then and there I am Gaia,’ and – in a surprise for a Christian bishop, gave them a small Jupiter’s Cake to sample. He even said the old prayer, “In offering you this cake, O Jupiter, I humbly pray that you, pleased with this offering, will be propitious and merciful to them and their children, house and household.”

  Claria stepped forward to give a ringing blessing of music, prophecy and healing, the attributes of her god Apollo, on their union and I saw several of the younger warriors push forward to escort her glamorous self from the altar while Candless stood deserted, despite all his pomp.

  Then it was the turn of the bridal couple to exit. Sintea looked radiant and Milo seemed dazed as they slowly walked through the crowded temple and stepped out into bright sunlight. The crowd threw nuts over them in blessing, and they stood to receive greetings and busses. I took a moment to shed my robes and put on the garment Candless had instructed me to wear, then emerged and moved to join the bishop in the forecourt by a stone horse trough. To my aides’ puzzlement, I had specified earlier in the day that they scrub the thing out and fill it with fresh water.

  The bishop called for silence, then announced my wedding gift to the church, to the country and to the young couple. The Imperator Arthur was to be baptized as a Christian. This, he claimed, would bring uncounted blessings on all, peace, prosperity and all the rest. I stopped listening. The announcement, relayed by men employed as shouters to make sure his words were heard at the back of the mob of local people who had crowded around the temple, brought the expected gasps and I saw my aide Androcles, magnificent in his mallard-winged helmet, touch the iron of his sword against the evil eye.

  I noted the fearsome female Celt chieftainess Branda mac Lauch form her fingers in the ‘avert evil’ sign and her bondwoman Brenchapa, who was reputed to have killed a northman sea raider in single combat, also spat on the floor to kill any curse. Many of the warriors were grasping the Thor’s hammer symbols they wore at the throat and were exchanging glances, wondering at my decision to renounce the old gods. We’d let the explanations out later. For now, I’d hidden my hammer under my tunic.

  Candless was revelling in the attention and launched a couple of prayers at the sky, then took up a pannikin and gestured me towards the horse trough. I’d warned him in no uncertain terms that I was not having him howl over me while I took a bath in the local burn, and we had agreed as a couple of secret pagans that a token God-washing would suffice.

  So I stood out in that bright, chill March day, barefoot and humiliatingly clad in a long white penitent’s surplice while he poured some freezing water over my head and said some incantation or other. So it was that, in full view of my Pictish vassals and a couple of emissaries from Gaul, I became Arthur Imperator Caesar Britannicus Marcus Aurelius Mauseus Carausius the dutiful, fortunate and unconquered Christian Augustus.

  Candless handed me a too-small linen towel to dry my beard and hair. “Congratulations, lord,” he smirked. “May all your sins be washed away.”

  “You’ll be bloody washed away if you don’t get me that army,” I hissed. Then I went to put on my imperial robes again and join my son and new daughter at the wedding feast while a few of the congregation slipped back into the church for some humble prayer to the miraculous Face of Christ that was on display. It was under the guard of a pair of watchful, tonsured monks who obviously did not want anyone getting too close to it, and Candless did well to choose muscular young clerics for the task, given the fervour it seemed to arouse.

  The wine must have been stronger than I thought, or maybe it was the relief I felt at the confirmation of the alliance that made me drink more heavily, but I have only hazy memories of leading the procession to the bridal house as I held the marriage torch aloft. Milo carried his bride over the threshold so she would not stumble – an ill omen – and Sintea lit the household fire before tossing the torch into her scrambling entourage. The Hibernian warrior woman Karay got it, after flattening the girl who caught it first.

  During the festivities two of our warriors were wounded in a drunken brawl, but were soon grasping each other and swearing eternal brotherhood after I knocked their heads together. Most of the guests were armed, which was unfortunate for a touchy clansman from the western isles, who was cut down by the Catuvellaunian archer Malnic after a dispute.

  The matter was settled when the brieve who was called upon to give judgement acquitted Malnic, saying it was certainly self-defence. I was glad of the decision, which I later found had been influenced by Candless’ discreet pre-trial gift of gold to the brieve, for Malnic was one of my elite warriors and had fought side by side with me in the snow of Gaul. So it was a joyful feast with only one casualty, and the best alliances are bound in blood, King Kinadius and I agreed.

  “We should do this alliance agreement properly,” I said, thickly. He tugged at his long braids and nodded. He was an inebriated as I was. I gestured Candless to come over. “The king and I will be blood brothers,” I said. “Bring your sword.”

  And there in moonlight on top of the ancient hill fort, with the German Sea glinting in the distance, Candless cut and raised a square turf of Pictish territory. The subject king Briant Baric was there, as was Grabelius, my horse master, to witness matters. Nobody was very sober, and Baric made some joke about invoking the spirit of Constantine and loving all Christians, even if we did not. Even now, I do not know how Baric knew or guessed at what Constantine would do in the near future.

  Kinadius and
I cut our palms with our knives and clasped bloody hand to bloody hand, then we let the gore from our joined hands drip into the revealed ground. At the edge of our vision, the fur of a white rat gleamed in the moon’s reflected light but I think only I saw it. Candless stamped the square of sod back into place and grasped us by our shoulders.

  “Arthur, Imperator of Britain, Kinadius, King of all Picts,” he said. “You are joined in blood on this land you rule. You are now for ever bound in peace and mutual brotherhood. May Wodan and Mithras favour you.” He didn’t even mention my new god, Christ. So it was done, and my northern border was secured. I stumbled to my pallet thinking that Christians like Candless were not so bad after all.

  Moonlit in a small alcove, the stone bust of the local god Antenocitus seemed to beam down at me, tolerantly.

  Chapter XXI - Exalter

  On a clear day, from the top of one of the twin pharoses which at night light the way into harbour at Dover, I could see the chalk cliffs of Gaul, and on this March morning I was watching the blue sails of two of my galleys approaching from across the Narrow Sea. It had been a long time since my simple task was to patrol these straits and put down pirates and since then, enough aqua had flowed through a water clock to float both of those galleys, I thought wryly.

  The sight of the sails was a good sign. My tribune Grimr, reformed Northman raider and now admiral of my fleet, had returned a week before to report a series of victories over the Roman naval patrols, which seemed to have been cleared from this part of the coast. He had been using a new weapon, a boom that swung out from his ship’s mainmast. His tactic was to get almost alongside the enemy vessel, keeping them from boarding by fending them off with long poles, then to swing out the boom so it was over the Romans’ heads.