The Blood of Kings: Tintagel Book I

by M. K. Hume

  If Decius had been a little more superstitious, he might have realised that two great fates had come together with a shudder, and that a new path had been created for these isles, one that would survive beyond the futures of Rome, Gaul, Constantinople, and all their empires.

  So easily is fortune changed.

  CHAPTER II

  The Boar and the Eagle

  Bella, horrida bella, Et thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.I see wars, horrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood.

  Virgil, Aeneid, Book 6

  As their hands met, Maximus felt an odd flicker race along his nerve ends, as if his brain recognised this alien flesh as belonging to a kindred spirit or a lost brother. The feeling was so strange and overpowering that the tribune examined the Dumnonii king with far more care and sincerity than he would normally have accorded to a barbarian.

  If Caradoc also felt this strange stirring in his being, he made no visible sign.

  ‘Welcome, Tribune. The comforts of Fortress Tintagel are open to you and your body servant. I don’t wish to seem untrusting, but I’d be all kinds of a fool if I was to welcome twenty armed men into my home. There are barracks by the causeway on each side of the flood, so all your guard can be comfortably quartered where you can call on them at any appropriate time. They may become a little tired of the stairs, but so it must be.’

  Caradoc grinned disarmingly and Maximus wondered if these idiotic grimaces were a strange tribal habit or whether the Dumnonii tribesmen played games with their Roman masters. After all, any manner of resentments could be hidden behind a broad smile. Maximus should have expected that his guard would be forbidden entry to the peninsula. However, in his experience, the most impertinent demands were sometimes rewarded with unexpected success, so he had decided to try his luck with this local king. But his gamble had failed this time, a defeat that left him slightly miffed. At least Caradoc had been honest about his concerns, while common courtesy to a host demanded that Maximus should abide by the king’s wishes.

  ‘Of course, sire. I can understand that coping with twenty strange warriors in your citadel might cause some practical difficulties,’ Maximus replied smoothly with an implied insult aimed at Caradoc’s capacity to be a liberal host. With a small sense of triumph Maximus watched something adamant and icy pass through Caradoc’s amber eyes. It glared out at him for a heartbeat, before disappearing as if it had never existed.

  Decius sighed in frustration. Why did Maximus always court trouble?

  The king of the Dumnonii wasn’t particularly tall, but he had at least two inches advantage in height over Maximus. Where the Roman’s face and figure were elegant and graceful, Caradoc resembled a bear on its hind legs more than a man, except for the absence of a shaggy coat. His shoulders were huge and his arms were unnaturally long, so Decius decided that Caradoc’s swordsmanship would be greatly enhanced by his extra reach. By contrast, his wide and heavily muscled chest gave way to narrow hips and legs that were quite short, as if his upper body was meant to belong to a much taller man.

  Maximus had a fine profile of which he was very proud. Unfortunately Caradoc’s gods had not been so kind to him in matters of physiognomy, so his face was heavy-set and blunt. The ridge across Caradoc’s eyebrow was particularly heavy and jutted well out over a pair of deep, golden-brown eyes that sparkled with intelligence and humour. Shaggy eyebrows completed a suggestion of thuggery in the king’s features which a much-broken nose did nothing to dispel. Even the king’s jaw was massive, robbing Caradoc’s sweetly curved lips of any softness. In all, the king resembled a robber or an outlawed murderer rather than a king – and he knew it.

  ‘My thanks, Tribune,’ Caradoc continued urbanely. ‘May I call you Maximus? I must say that it’s a name that conjures up power, yet it sounds pleasant on the tongue. My name, on the other hand, is a lot like me. It’s harsh-sounding, plain and no-nonsense.’

  Maximus knew enough of the history of Britannia to recall that another Cymru chieftain called Caradoc had opposed a Roman invasion some two hundred years earlier and had successfully held his enemies at bay for an embarrassing length of time. He realised that this Caradoc was quite aware of the history of his namesake and what that revolt implied.

  Maximus murmured something appropriate, although he was a little rattled by the king’s candour. He was accustomed to dealing with powerful men but most, if not all, of them avoided any acknowledgement of their own physical defects.

  ‘I hope that you’ll excuse Tintagel’s deficiencies as far as comfort is concerned. When all is said and done, she’s a fortress rather than a palace. At those times when we yearn for relief from the citadel’s grimness, we travel south to Isca Dumnoniorum. It’s a sweet spot on the southern coast where the sun always shines, so perhaps you might be prepared to travel with us on one of our jaunts, if you have sufficient time at your disposal?’

  Caradoc spread his arms to match his words as the doors of Tintagel opened wide to permit their entry.

  Decius paused to order the rest of the men in the company to follow Rowen ap Aidan to their quarters below the citadel, while disciplining any cavalryman who dared to murmur his annoyance that the troop would not be welcome in the fortress proper and would have to face a harrowing descent of the stairs. One soldier expressed his feelings with a muffled oath, so Decius was forced to respond for the sake of discipline among the ranks. He cuffed the man soundly around the ears.

  ‘You’ll go down them steps with a smile on your faces and you’ll like it, do you hear?’ Decius snapped. ‘Our hosts will believe you are pussies who are suited only for guarding grandmothers by the fireside, and that you’re too fat and too fearful to act like real men.’

  Several faces flushed under Decius’s scrutiny, but he noticed that the Brigante cavalryman didn’t seem afraid of the dangers inherent in the climb or the descent. Sent trotting towards the head of the stairs in Rowen’s wake, he accepted his lot without further complaint.

  Suddenly, one of the younger warriors froze after descending just two steps. Decius could tell that this lad was rigid with terror, so he refrained from shouting at the trembling man whose eyes were staring blankly downwards as he imagined the fall to the black rocks and turbulent waters below.

  Urging the young man’s companions to move past, Decius yanked at the man’s neck with a claw-like grip that forced him to turn so he would be facing the wall during the descent.

  ‘See, boy? If you’re facing the wall, you don’t have to worry about falling. Just concentrate on taking one step at a time.’

  The lad took a couple of tentative steps and a smile suddenly appeared on his face. Within seconds, he was clambering down as if he had been born and bred in the fortress.

  Decius sighed and returned to the forecourt of Tintagel. Sometimes a decurion’s work was never done, while Maximus would be sour that he’d been kept waiting for far too long. Decius clattered across the forecourt to a narrow rim of light where the glow from an interior lamp was bleeding out into the darkening afternoon.

  As he reached the doorway leading into the fortress and skidded in a wet puddle of water, a steely set of fingers straightened him and the decurion looked up into the angry eyes of his master.

  ‘I was beginning to wonder what had become of my body servant,’ Maximus said pleasantly, although his grip was bruising Decius’s forearm to the bone. ‘Hunt up my packs, would you? I have gifts from Theodosius in them that must be presented to Caradoc personally. Hop to it, man! Someone will tell you where to find me once you’ve located the packages.’

  Within the doorway, a series of short corridors led off a small circular space towards the beginnings of Tintagel’s maze. Very low doorways led into a dizzying array of tiny, round spaces that appeared to be designed as storage areas.

  A servant appeared out of the half-light in front of them, taking up a flare from an orna
te iron sconce. He nodded to the king, and then padded off in front of the master and his guest up a narrow staircase barely wide enough to accommodate Caradoc’s shoulders. At the top, the small party travelled along a corridor lined with small closed doors until, with eyes dazzled from a sudden flood of light, Maximus followed the king across the threshold of a room that was at least three times the size of all the apartments he had passed so far. This chamber was still far from large, but a whole circle of narrow, shuttered windows ran from waist height to the ceiling, a device that gave an illusion of space. Despite himself, Maximus was impressed and he noted that the stained oak rafters gave purchase to a thatched roof that was blackened from a central iron fireplace, although the air at roof level remained sweet and fresh from the free passage of sea breezes whenever the tight wooden shutters were opened.

  ‘This room is the Eye of Tintagel and it is my window on the world,’ Caradoc explained. ‘You will see what I mean tomorrow, when you waken and gaze out at your surroundings.’

  Servants thrust lamps into sconces to add to the rich golden light of an almost wasteful display of sweet-smelling, burning oil. Maximus was all too familiar with the unmistakable reek of fish-oil lamps, but his nose told him that only the finest oils, sweetened with lavender, had been selected for the comfort of the king’s guests, although he doubted that Caradoc would have cared if the air in the Eye of Tintagel stank of rotting fish. Inside the chamber, rough bench seating ran around the circumference of the room, its timbers smoothed over generations into hues of deepest sable. Several stools were positioned slightly off-centre. The seating in the room was backless and incredibly old, to judge by the crude representations of three-faced gods carved into the timber.

  Maximus had been told about the British obsession with the triple aspects of their divinities, so he shuddered inwardly as he recalled some of the tales of incredible barbarity attached to the older British religions. Fortunately, many Britons now paid lip service to the new, kinder Roman God and His son, Jesus.

  ‘Sit, my friend, and my servants will bring beer, mead or wine, depending on your preference. I can assure you that I keep a goodly supply of crisp wines that have been traded with our friends from Hispania. I keep them specifically for important visitors to the fortress, as well as personal friends. I seem to recall that you have estates in Hispania and the wines in your lands are highly valued.’

  ‘Aye!’ Maximus responded with a slight frown. How had this provincial king learned so much about him? However, with his annoyingly bland smile, Caradoc allowed the subject to lapse and moved on to other matters.

  Out of long habit, Caradoc settled onto the oldest and largest of the stools. At the same time, Maximus was grateful that he would be free to sit elsewhere, rather than on one of those squat and threatening forms. Two young servants brought forward a cushion for Maximus while Decius, newly arrived in the room, was left to stand next to the wall with Maximus’s saddlebags at his feet.

  When the tribune began to speak, Decius was surprised at his master’s pleasant manner. Maximus gestured towards his servant who deduced that the gifts stowed in the saddlebags were required.

  Fumbling in haste, Decius retrieved the two small packages and presented them to his master, while Caradoc followed the actions of his guests with interested eyes that spoke eloquently of his avid pleasure at the prospect of receiving personal gifts.

  ‘Caradoc, my friend!’ The tribune held out the first of the packages. ‘Please allow me to present you with a trifling gift for your beautiful wife, a woman whose attributes are famed even beyond these lands. It expresses my personal admiration.’

  Caradoc permitted himself a swift, ambiguous smile at his guest’s pomposity. These Romans! They were always so certain that they were the masters of the world by a divine right.

  But six months earlier Caradoc had been forced by circumstances to approach the Wise Woman of the Red Wells. The woman had spoken to him at a time when he had need of her healing skills for a sorely wounded servant. At the time, he had been impressed by her surprising demeanour and predictions, so he had listened carefully to her words of advice.

  Now, with the Roman watching him so closely, Caradoc decided to reconsider the predictions of the wise woman at a later time, when this charade with his guest was over. Then, he would reassess her words and deduce why the meeting with this particular young Roman was so important to the gods. Smiling with real enjoyment and a feigned cupidity, Caradoc took the gifts like an excited child and carefully began to remove the wrappings.

  ‘For your lady wife,’ Maximus repeated, as the nail on Caradoc’s forefinger sliced through a thin tie of woollen yarn. The small parcel spilled open and a shimmering river of sea-green, blue and gold silk slithered into Caradoc’s lap.

  ‘That’s lovely!’ Caradoc murmured, his sword-hardened fingers seduced by the smoothness of the fabric. What he held in his palms was a woman’s headscarf that had obviously originated in Constantinople, or even further into the east where the yellow men with slanted eyes were said to breed gossamer cloth from the bodies of tiny caterpillars. Both king and tribune found this fable too far-fetched to be believable, but none of these irrelevancies mattered when Caradoc caressed the beautiful silk.

  The king thought of his thin-lipped, black-haired wife and the two sons, Cadal and Cadoc, whom she was trying to turn into milksops. His controlled expression slipped momentarily, and his upper lip curled in distaste.

  Maximus sensed a hint of dissatisfaction in the king’s features, but wisely displayed no curiosity. As Decius had suggested, Tintagel was a strange place. The Dumnonii king, his guards and his fortress seemed so alien that Maximus felt off-balance. Meanwhile, Caradoc had hefted the weight of the second oilskin package with a tentative smile.

  ‘Can this be . . . ?’ he began, recognising the shape of the gift that lay under his fingers. As the wrappings fell away, Caradoc seemed as eager as a young child.

  ‘Maximus, this weapon is beyond price!’

  The dagger was not excessively long nor was it particularly decorative. The blade was only a little larger than Caradoc’s hand and it nestled within a plain oxhide and silver sheath that had been inlaid with the mask of a heavily tusked boar where the leather straps would buckle onto a sword belt. Maximus experienced a moment of pure joy when he realised he had chosen such a wise gift for a warrior king.

  Caradoc drew the blade free with a welcoming hiss that could have issued from the maw of a pet dragonlet. The blade was leaf-shaped, sharpened on each side and terminated in a thoroughly wicked point. He tested the blade’s edge against the palm of his horny hand and his eyes widened with surprise as he discovered its quality. The decoration on the hilt was unusual, like nothing either the king or those warriors present had seen before. Maximus had puzzled over the linear design for many hours before concluding that it represented two strange, stylised fish that were only recognisable by their bronze scales. Twisted and turned and then twisted again, their forms terminated at the pommel with each trying to clutch at a raw hunk of rock crystal in their toothed mouths.

  ‘This weapon has travelled far,’ Caradoc observed quietly while his clever, spatulate fingers made the knife jump and flick from one hand to the other.

  ‘Very far! I purchased the weapon in a market in Tolosa, but the man who sold it to me swore it came from the far side of the Middle Sea. He was uncertain of its origins, but he believed the dark-eyed seamen who once came out of ancient Tyre were its first owners. I cannot tell you if the shopkeeper was telling the truth or boasting . . . but as a warrior, I recognise that this knife is a very good weapon with a noble and ancient lineage.’

  With shining eyes, Caradoc thanked him once again and handed the knife to a manservant who whisked it away, along with the queen’s scarf. Then the king and his guest settled down to prolonged talk, as they sipped the crisp wines of Maximus’s homeland.

 
Many hours later, after several bowls of a hearty fish stew, the wonderful wines of Hispania and generous amounts of nuts, dried apples, pears and berries that had been produced on the local farmlands, Maximus was shown to a room high in the fortress which had been prepared as his sleeping chamber. Here, a low bed in the Roman style awaited him, with a pallet of lamb’s-wool and woven covers that were pure pleasure after many days of travelling on horseback.

  Stretching, Maximus luxuriated under the warm covers, oblivious to the wild winds that buffeted the tightly-sealed shutters. For one fleeting moment he wished he’d asked Caradoc for a young woman to warm his bed but, in retrospect, he decided that he’d be far better served by using this warm nest to ascertain what he had learned about his host.

  Caradoc might have looked like a brute, but the tribune acknowledged that the king’s manners were flawless and his sensitivities were surprising. Maximus was certain that the king’s clothing was woven by his own women, but the textures and colours of the fabrics were subtly pleasurable to the eye and to the touch. What jewellery Caradoc wore was spartan and beautifully made, so Maximus had experienced a brief moment of envy at a strangely polished stone in a massy ring on the king’s signet finger. The Roman only rarely envied the possessions of any man, Briton or Roman.

  ‘You like my ring, Tribune?’ Caradoc had asked while removing the subject of Maximus’s attention as if it was a trifle. ‘The stone is green amber which is a particularly common bauble along the coasts near Tintagel. Our ambers are mostly of poor quality, but every so often one comes to light that is truly perfect. This is one such stone.’

  Maximus had stared intently at the amber, for it was a strange variation on a jewel that was fairly commonplace in Rome. Instead of the golden colour or the whipped-honey creaminess of the good stones that made their way to the lands of the Middle Sea, this gem was pale green with hundreds of small pinprick bubbles of air that had been trapped inside the sticky gum when the tree had relinquished its lifeblood aeons earlier.