by M. K. Hume
Gwydion’s partner in weapon’s practice was a much younger bastard son called Vran, who was only eighteen years of age. The lad was dark and intense, slender and steely of muscle, but he lacked the height of his sire, being short and neat like his mother, Fearn, who was reputed to be a descendant of an enslaved Pict. Unlike that dour race, Fearn had been a graceful, vivacious and fiercely intelligent young woman, and she and Artor had remained friends. From time to time, the High King would visit her snug cottage in Cadbury Town and she would welcome him in the old way, with laughter, earnest talk and comfortable passion.
Artor felt a warm surge of pride as the two warriors, both so dissimilar, fought each other to a standstill. Although Gwydion had superior reach, he couldn’t find a chink in Vran’s defence which was fast, acrobatic and intelligent. When the bout was over, Artor congratulated both men, who bowed in homage and flushed with pleasure. He clapped Gwydion on the back and ruffled Vran’s hair as he marvelled at the devotion that was so nakedly obvious in the eyes of both men.
How very strange, Artor thought. I never openly acknowledge my bastard sons, and yet they are still fiercely loyal. I believe the guard would die to protect me.
‘We thank you, lord, for your faith in us,’ Gwydion murmured, clenching his right fist and holding it over his heart in the manner of the Roman legions.
‘You have given an old man pleasure, boys. Remember me to your mothers, and remind them of my respect and affection.’
Both men stood a little taller in gratitude for Artor’s words. The king accepted their mothers and themselves as his, although they would never be legitimate and had no expectations of formal largesse from the High King.
So, when Artor ran headlong into a heedless Balyn running at full tilt, he felt a moment’s irritation, but his good mood was too warm and mellow to be easily cast aside.
Drawing back from the youth, Artor eyed Balyn with concern. The young man had virtually no ability to hide his emotions behind a smiling façade. That he was deeply troubled boded no good for Artor’s peace of mind and the king felt, rather than heard, his protective Jutlander as Odin moved carefully into a striking position behind him.
So deeply was Balyn enmeshed in his own chaotic thoughts that he would have blundered on carelessly through the palace, but Artor gripped his arm and swung the lad round to face him.
‘Hold up, young Balyn. I swear you’re as skittish as a frightened horse. Where are you heading in such a mad rush, and who’s put that frown on your face?’
Balyn paused, blushed and stammered out his apologies.
‘I’m angry and confused, my lord. I didn’t see you. I crave your pardon for my haste and discourtesy.’
‘That’s not good enough, young man. I’m on my way to see the queen, but she can wait a few moments more. How may I help you?’
The boy’s eyebrows knitted together, just as Gallia’s had done when she was worrying away at a particularly troublesome problem. The king’s chest contracted painfully with this small trick of memory. Artor wondered how he could remember such fine details about his beloved’s mannerisms and yet couldn’t recall the details of her face. For Gallia’s sake, he chose to ignore the mutinous flash of anger that passed through the expressive eyes of this grandson who scowled and stared mulishly at his feet.
‘I argued with my brother, my lord,’ Balyn replied. ‘It was only a passing squabble, not worth keeping you from your duties to the queen.’ Balyn shuffled his feet like a small child caught out in a lie. His telltale eyes dropped to stare fixedly at his hands.
‘Come, Balyn. Wenhaver can wait, but I fear that you cannot do so.’
Firmly and patiently, Artor began to draw the young man towards his private apartments, acutely aware of Odin’s disapproving scowl.
Balyn protested half-heartedly, but he permitted Artor to lead him into his spartan quarters where he was firmly pressed to accept a cushioned bench. As the boy’s eyes roamed this inner sanctum, Odin gave him a goblet of light Spanish wine. The golden alcohol was the same colour as the tiny yellow flecks that lay in Balyn’s grey eyes.
‘I’m an old man, lad, but I’ve seen too many summers come and go to confuse a brotherly squabble with a serious disagreement. Tell me the nature of your argument.’ Artor used the full force of a voice that had always had authority. Balyn blushed, even though the king’s tone was kindly.
‘You’ll be angry with me,’ the youth began, then stopped abruptly.
‘I’m often angry, but tell me anyway.’
‘We argued over you, sire . . . and the queen.’
Artor ran one hand through his close-cropped curls. Balyn was almost childish in his lack of tact. The blurted-out words washed away any impatience that the king still felt. He raised the boy’s mutinous chin with one hand. For a moment, he wished that this beautiful youth had half the poise of Vran or Gwydion.
‘As you are so confused and upset, I’ll permit you to ask whatever questions you choose of me. I’ll answer them as honestly as I can, as long as I don’t besmirch my honour in the process. I’ve nothing to hide from you, young man.’
‘Modred says that your personal guards are all bastard children that you’ve sired,’ Balyn stated baldly. ‘I felt sorry for the queen and Balan told me I was being hasty.’
Artor became a little pale around the eyes and one booted foot jerked unconsciously.
‘And?’ Artor raised one quizzical eyebrow. ‘I know that small piece of gossip wasn’t enough to send you rampaging through my halls like a blind young bull.’
Dismayed, Balyn tried to retreat from the king’s all-seeing eyes but, like many better men and women before him, he could not. Artor missed nothing.
‘Balan told me to look in a mirror,’ he said quietly. Torment stared out of eyes that had the same quick passions of the long-lost Gallia.
Instead of words of comfort, or the truth, Artor drained his wine cup in one swallow.
Odin immediately refilled it.
‘Do you really think that I made a bastard out of you? And a whore out of your mother?’
Artor’s tone was regretful, but not angry, and Balyn’s heart ceased to hammer ferociously against his ribs.
‘Not exactly,’ he stammered. ‘Balan said I was crazy to think such treasonous thoughts. But what am I to do when every time I shave my face, I see your image in the mirror? Kings have been known to beget sons on aristocratic women before now. Modred has told me of the failings of my family.’
‘Modred is an adder who’ll soon find my heel on his neck,’ Artor murmured and rose to his feet. He looked down at the handsome young man whose shining plaits and glossy, golden skin was so much like his own had been. ‘Still, you’ve a right to know your mother’s history, so you’ll hear it from me and not from rumour-mongering or innuendo. Your confusion is understandable, Balyn, so I’m not offended. Yes, my personal guard is composed, in part, of my acknowledged but illegitimate sons whom I’ve chosen not to abandon. The queen has borne me no heir and, although we work together for the good of the realm, I’m long past the age of love and romance. Our marriage was arranged for us, Balyn, and we have suffered some of the consequences of such affairs of state. I’ll not lie to you. Neither of us has been particularly happy in the match, but we do our duty as best we can.’
A little mollified, Balyn gulped a mouthful of wine. The king’s explanation seemed so reasonable that his anger began to waver.
‘Would you begrudge your king the odd entanglement with a willing servant girl if I do my duty by any child born out of a moment’s lust?’
Balyn raised his eyes and shook his head.
‘As for your likeness to me, what can I say to calm your fears and to kill Modred’s seeds of suspicion? Your mother, Anna, and I are kin. We are close kin. Your elder brother, Bran, is probably my direct heir, although I’ll never lay such a heavy burden upon him. Many years ago, I privately acknowledged that your mother was my sister, the child of Uther Pendragon, who was sired on his deathbed.
This blood link is not common knowledge, for Anna would be shamed by any suggestion that she was illegitimate.’
Balyn gaped. He was now thoroughly disarmed.
‘Both my older sisters deny the link between Anna and Uther Pendragon for personal and ambitious reasons. I have also been deliberately vague with Anna, so she has never been sure who was her birth father. Fortunately, she accepted Lord Ector as her foster-father. I was pleased, partly for political reasons but, more importantly, to protect her from the lying rumours of curs such as Modred. I have publicly been silent on the matter to spare her feelings and to protect her from men who would have much to gain had they got a child on her when she was young. Your father, Comac, on the other hand, was the son of one of my dearest friends. I ensured that Anna and her children were safe.’ Artor smiled into the gawking eyes of Balyn. ‘Was I wrong to protect her from the ambitions and slurs of the unscrupulous?’
Artor’s words were direct and seemingly free from guile. Balyn felt his confusion weaken under the High King’s steady gaze and something melted within his chest. Had Artor known how totally his words were believed and how passionately Balyn accepted his king as the head of his family, he would have been ashamed at the half-truths that fell so glibly from his practised tongue.
‘I’m humiliated by my wicked thoughts, my king. I’ve allowed myself to be used and enraged by rumour, when all I had to do was ask and the truth would have been made clear to me. I’ve been foolish.’
‘No, lad, you’re simply young and you’re new to the jockeying for power that is a large part of life at court. But you must beware of Modred, for he’s happy to foster the belief that Morgause is his mother, that she betrayed her husband with Luka’s youngest son. It suits him to become known and accepted as my kin. Perhaps that’s why he’s so slow to return to his lands, although I’ve hinted several times that his subjects must miss him in his absence. Modred plays his own games. I don’t know if Modred speaks the truth or not, but he has the look of my sister, Morgan the Fey. Modred believes he is a claimant to the throne, along with Gawayne and his brothers. Modred, therefore, cannot be trusted.’
‘Balan tried to explain Modred’s motives to me, but I wouldn’t listen.’ Chagrin was written plainly on Balyn’s face.
The two men finished their wine. Balyn rose to his feet and bowed deeply to his king.
‘I know so little of the world, but I promise to listen to cooler heads in future. I’ll maintain my silence about what you’ve told me, lord, and I swear I’ll never betray you.’
‘I don’t want your blood on my hands, lad, because your mother would never forgive me. But, I want you to think before you act. When I was young, I was fortunate to have Targo who taught me to exercise patience, rather than make a snap decision I would come to regret. Your twin brother serves this same purpose for you.’
With profuse thanks and with the glow of ardent hero worship shining out of his eyes, Balyn left the king’s presence with the endearing clumsiness of a puppy.
Artor remained seated in his favourite chair and hooked one leg over its raised end piece for comfort, his intended visit to the queen apparently forgotten. His brows were drawn down in irritation and he felt a momentary self-disgust for the lies and half-truths he had told to perpetuate a necessary fiction.
‘You spoke too frankly with that young man, Artor,’ Odin chastised him. ‘The boy feels too much and thinks too little. He lives on the edge of a knife and he’ll never forgive you if your small lie is revealed to him.’
Artor shrugged off Odin’s words. Balyn was only a high-spirited, passionate young man. Roughly, he told the Jutlander to be silent. Odin obeyed, but he clutched a small leather bag that hung on a cord around his neck. Inside the soft leather, Odin felt the smooth outline of small stones marked with northern runes. There was little that he feared in the whole green earth, but Balyn’s eyes were windows to his thoughts, and what Odin saw there filled him with foreboding. The boy teetered between the extremes of exultation and despair, and Artor was ignoring Balyn’s flaws, terrible weaknesses that could bring him to ruin.
For a time, Artor sat, nibbled on a dried apple from the winter storehouse, and considered the vexing nature of Modred, his nephew.
As befitted Modred’s position as a tribal king, Artor had invited the young man to a private audience not long after he had arrived at Cadbury. Neither man enjoyed the occasion.
Modred had dressed exquisitely in black and red, a flamboyance that suited his colouring and slenderness. When he entered the High King’s private apartment, his eyes had scanned the room efficiently, filing away all those small details that revealed aspects of Artor’s character. With every movement of the young man, Artor was reminded of Morgan the Fey, his dangerous half-sister.
‘Why have you come here, Modred? You are welcome, of course, to stay for as long as you wish, but I’m curious about the motives that have driven you to travel so many weary miles.’ Artor offered his nephew the same easy, lying smile that Modred gave to him.
‘Why, uncle, we have never met till now, and the death of my king and my unexpected crowning seemed to necessitate some communication between us. Luka was my grandfather, as you know, and I was raised as a Brigante.’ Modred grinned. ‘A shortage of heirs to the throne resulted in my elevation.
‘When my cousin died childless from a lung disease, I was fortunate to be on the spot, so to speak, the motherless and fatherless outsider who was the last heir of Luka. My cousin was ill for some time, so the council of old men are quite used to ruling in the name of the king. While you might frown at my casual disregard for my throne and my people, I can assure you that those squabbling old lords can’t agree on anything but the simplest actions of rule. The young warriors follow me, so I don’t fear that I’ll be deposed. But I’m curious about my grandfather, and even more eager to learn the history of my mother’s kin. I’m sure that you can understand my position, having been raised in a similar fashion yourself. ’
In fact, their childhoods had been very different. Modred’s mother had rejected the boy as an error of judgement, and his father had been assassinated before the babe could ever know him, leaving the infant to be raised by retainers and treated as an inconvenient bastard, albeit one who was well-born. He was scorned by other boys of his age as a landless orphan.
Artor could imagine how despair, loneliness and bullying had blighted Modred’s life and embittered him beyond his years. Modred was unloved, he had been ignored and rejected; he had lacked a Frith or a Targo to humanize him. Those aspects of his nature that had ensured his survival during his barren youth had also cemented his position as king of a troublesome and passionate tribe, but they were not comfortable skills, for Modred was ambitious and coldly efficient. With a spasm of recognition, Artor acknowledged that the young Modred had inherited his chill, rational nature from the same source as he himself had. In this, Modred was the one kinsman who most closely resembled the High King.
Yet Artor couldn’t bring himself to like Modred, and would never be able to trust him. The High King had never known the whips of ambition that drove some men to commit terrible crimes to achieve their heart’s desires. Yet he had known many men and women who were afflicted by an excess of desire. Ambition had driven Glamdring Ironfist and Caius, although both men had been very different in nature and motive. Ambition had driven Simnel’s rebellion and caused the death of Luka. Ironically, Simnel’s ambition had ensured that Modred was elevated to the position of King of the Brigante.
Could Modred wish for more? Would he raise his eyes as high as Artor’s throne?
Artor had resolved to watch Modred closely.
Now, his spirits lifted as his thoughts returned to the twins. They might prove to be a blessing. If one of them became his heir, Modred’s expectations would be denied; both Balyn and Balan were skilled warriors and, more importantly, they were still young.
Two days later, as rains threatened from out of a darkening morning sky, riders were seen app
roaching at speed from the north. They had already reached the orchards beyond Cadbury Town when the guard called the alarm.
Warning bells pealed over the tor.
Accompanied by his bodyguard, Artor rode out to the first rampart to greet the tired horsemen as they climbed the hill on their foundering horses. The five men had set out from Glastonbury at a fast pace that they had maintained all the way to Cadbury. The least experienced rider of the group was a tonsured priest in a bloodstained habit that was only partially covered by a ragged cloak. This exhausted man, almost unconscious with weariness, was lying along the neck of his shaking horse as it shuddered to a stop. Its chest and withers were covered with bloody foam.
‘Who disturbs the peace of the High King?’ Percivale demanded, already kitted out in hastily donned battledress.
The four warriors dismounted and bowed low while the priest continued to hang over the neck of his mount. Percivale helped the man to dismount and to stand on trembling legs.
The leader of the warriors addressed Artor directly.
‘I am Ked, my lord. I’m a vassal of Glyndwr of Lloegyr come to report Saxon and Jute activities to the east. Two nights ago, we observed a number of fires in the distance. We rode to Glastonbury the next morning and found it had been attacked and several buildings gutted by fire.’
Artor curled one hand into a fist. Glastonbury lay under his personal protection, and any attack on it was an attack on the crown.
‘What else?’ He looked at the exhausted priest. ‘This matter is clearly both serious and urgent. The priest has ridden hard for a man unused to the reins.’
‘The Bishop of Glastonbury has been murdered,’ Ked replied evenly. ‘He was killed at his own altar.’
One of Ked’s men handed over a tall rod of office, similar to those used by Druids. The crude carving at both ends was matted with hair, blood and brain matter, all long dried.
Artor gave an exclamation of dismay, but Gruffydd took the staff from Ked and examined it closely.