by M. K. Hume
At last he looked Artorex directly in the eye.
‘Gareth has sent this talisman that he took from Gallia’s body. Frith made it, and Gallia wore it, so Gareth believes that it is meant to be in your care. It is a final gift from two women who have played an important part in your life, so I pass it on to you.’
Artorex took the small pregnant form and caressed its swollen belly with his thumbs. He should cast it away lest grief overwhelm him, but the warm fragment of hazel felt so smooth and so full of love that, eventually, he decided to keep it. He folded his hands over the amulet and nodded his head in thanks.
Later, much later, Artorex would wear the tiny figure on a golden chain round his neck so that it would lie over his heart.
Caius felt decidedly uncomfortable and burst into hasty speech.
‘The vermin who killed her are dead. We burned their bodies, and scattered their ashes to the winds so their souls would be lost forever. But first, we let the carrion eat their fill.’
Something of Caius’s old cruelty had returned to his eyes as he told his tale, and Artorex thought, irrelevantly, that here was a tool fit for his use if ever he had such an ugly need.
Like father, like son, Artorex thought coldly, for he had finally reasoned out his kinship to Uther and his importance in the scheme of Myrddion’s plans.
He felt as though tainted blood was running through his veins and yearned fervently for the opportunity to be alone with his grief.
‘Only one of the assassins survived the battle, so we did everything in our power to ensure he revealed the reason for the attack on the villa,’ Caius added. ‘He was hamstrung by Gareth inside the villa, and couldn’t move, except to crawl on the earth like a snake. Julanna applied her own ministrations in an attempt to extract information from the man by slicing his body in those places where the nerves are closest to the skin. I would never have believed my wife could act as she did.’ Caius shook his head at the memory, for the young man was lost in the no-man’s land between admiration for his spouse and the sudden fear that strikes when a harmless pet is found to have turned into a rabid animal.
He sighed.
‘All we managed to extract from him was his name - Botha. He did not try to hide his identity, or mitigate his actions, regardless of torture.’
‘In his own way, then, he was an honourable and loyal man,’ Artorex said reflectively.
‘He died hard, my brother. Ector and Julanna saw to his suffering, for I find I have had my fill of inflicting pain. Other than saying his name, or to pray to his gods, or to beg the pardon of the house, he said no other word. His ashes were scattered in the fields.’
‘Thank you, Caius. It is my wish that you attend me in the morning when I visit the High King,’ Artorex replied distantly. ‘We live in strange times, brother, when women are the pawns of power, and I find that your great mother knew that one day I’d have need of you. I bound myself to you with my promise to Livinia and I’ll always remember that promise.’
When Caius eventually found a spare sleeping pallet, still caked with dirt from his travels, he marvelled that the tender flesh of the boy he had called Lump had become the fully grown, cold and confident leader of seasoned warriors, some of whom he had just spoken to.
I never knew him at all, Caius wondered with a sense of unease. This new Artorex makes my blood run cold.
In the morning Caius washed carefully in the Roman manner, dressed and armed himself as a Roman nobleman and joined Artorex and his friends in the forecourt of the High King.
Caius carefully seized the opportunity to mend his reputation with his foster-brother and the three travellers. Coldly, and with an eye to the main chance, Ector’s son began to tie his fate inexorably to the destiny of Artorex. He blessed his mother, for she had recognized the quality in her foster-son and had bound him to her family through an oath.
Only Targo, as faithful and as intuitive as always, had entered Artorex’s small room during the night. He came late in the evening and found his master wracked by voiceless tears as he clutched Gallia’s amulet to his lips.
Long was Artorex’s grief, and deep, for all its silence; Targo could do little except offer a soldier’s company to a fellow soul who was in torment. When Artorex had wept all the tears his eyes could shed and had fallen into a restless sleep filled with blood and murder, Targo stayed on watch, his heart breaking from the memories of little Gallia and her lost, evanescent joy.
Artorex never wept again. In the long years that followed, he would know hideous loss but never again would he weep so honestly and so free of shame.
As he had done in the past, Uther underestimated the ultimate effect of his discourtesy to Artorex. The soldierly mien of Artorex and the oddity of several tribal kings and a Roman nobleman left cooling their heels in the forecourt was natural fuel for gossip, and the rumours did little credit to the High King. Artorex and his companions never complained. Silently, they stood at attention when other men would have wearied. Eventually, the High King realized his foolishness for, after two long hours, the brazen doors were opened and Artorex was summoned into Uther’s presence.
The man who entered, flanked by Caius and Llanwith on one side, and Luka and Myrddion on the other, was no longer a youth but a man. His face was unlined and his hair as golden-red as ever, but his features had settled into an expression of measured authority, unencumbered by passion or wild emotion. His eyes glittered in his face, and they were unreadable, direct and beyond fear. The courtiers and priests who were present in the throne room shrank from his presence, for Artorex was the true king among them, relegating Uther to little more than a shrunken, ancient mummy, a shadow of his former self.
‘I have brought you Anderida, as demanded, my liege.’ Artorex’s voice filled the furthest corners of the room. ‘I bring you greetings from Ban, Firebrand of the West, who joined the glorious dead at the siege of the Great Hall of the Saxons. I bear the spoils of the Christian churches of the south-east as your portion and I ask your lordship’s permission to wage war against the Saxons wherever they may be!’
Artorex raised one hand, and Odin advanced, bearing a great chest. At the foot of the dais, he bowed his head, opened the heavy, brass-bound lid and exposed the golden relics of the Christian churches that had been looted by the Saxon hordes. The gasping admiration of the court washed over him in waves.
Odin backed away to stand directly behind his master.
Uther did not deign to gaze upon the heaped religious treasures. ‘Ask? Ask? You’re not asking! You’re demanding! What right do you have to instruct your king in the niceties of warfare?’ Uther looked contemptuously around the court as if inviting laughter, but the room remained unnaturally silent.
Myrddion stepped forward fearlessly.
‘My lord, Artorex is the true hero of Anderida, your leader who captured the impregnable fortress. He is the truest of warriors who fights in your name - and your name only. He is the Warrior of the West!’
Uther snorted as Myrddion stepped back.
Llanwith took his place.
‘Artorex determined our strategies, planned our victories and personally caused the destruction of many Saxons. They burned like logs of wood in your brazier. He is the supreme Warrior of the West.’
Llanwith stepped back into position.
When Luka took his friend’s place, he grinned at the assembled courtiers with a smile that held little amusement.
‘My lord, Artorex alone holds the trust of all men, whether high or low, who know him. He alone can stand in your stead as your supreme warrior, now that age has brought your sword hand low. He has borne the burden of the death of our warriors bravely, and he has proved himself to be the Warrior of the West.’
Uther paled, and the crowd stirred like dry leaves in an autumn wind.
Finally, Caius took Luka’s place and Uther peered at the unknown man, wrapped in a toga and armed with a Roman short sword.
‘My liege, Artorex is the hope of the helpless
, the bearer of burdens and the last Dux Bellorum. He is the Warrior of the West - regardless of the fact that he is my brother.’
Consternation filled the hall, and voices rose, twittering like birds or calling like gulls towards the blackened ceiling. Uther impatiently raised his hand and silence fell over the court.
‘Who is this Roman?’ he demanded.
‘Caius is the son of Ector, guardian of the Villa Poppinidii and the Old Forest of Aquae Sulis,’ Artorex stated in a loud, clear voice. ‘His mother was Livinia, the last of the pure Poppinidii line, and he is my foster-brother. He brings you greetings from Botha, who remained true to his vows unto his death.’
Artorex’s face was cold, unemotional and grim. The mention of Botha, captain of Uther’s guard, caused the audience to whisper and speculate, while Artorex waited to spring the trap.
Uther was dumbstruck. His grey face became pasty and his hands and mouth trembled as if in the grip of palsy. No one in that cheerless, imposing room could fail to notice that the King had been struck a body blow. His twisted, ivory fingers clenched and unclenched on his bony knees and Caius thought the old man would faint with shock.
So that’s the way of it, Caius thought calculatingly. Uther wants Artorex dead. I wonder why.
The High King’s guards, who were unaware of Botha’s mission, were startled at the mention of their captain’s name, while the faces of Myrddion, Llanwith and Luka were frozen in amazement. Only Caius and Artorex remained outwardly unmoved.
‘The Villa Poppinidii stands strong, and continues to control the route to Aqua Sulis. No Saxon will pass while Ector, or I, draw breath,’ Caius swore. ‘And no flames, no treachery, and no murder in the dead of night will breach its ancient walls.’
If any man knew and understood that every word spoken was charged with a silken threat, then none dared to give any sign of that knowledge. Caius felt a wave of exultation course through his blood, for Uther seemed to reel and shake as if from a seizure.
Ygerne stiffened and Morgause simply gaped. Morgan smiled vaguely - and played with her knucklebones.
But Uther knew. He realized that his scheme had failed and that Artorex was leaping above his tragedy like a phoenix rising out of its own ashes. Aghast, Uther finally understood that Botha’s raid had strengthened Artorex’s position and, in the process, he had lost his most loyal servant. Now, surrounded by enemies and the merely curious, the High King seemed to deflate from within.
‘You may do what you will - and we thank you,’ Uther whispered in a voice that was as thready as the wind that slid through the cracks in the door.
And then, anti-climactically, the audience was over
But Uther Pendragon, victor of so many battles, was not yet finished. Beyond doubt, the young man was from his loins, but the knowledge gave the old monster no pleasure. All Uther still possessed was pride, now grown hugely into hubris, and he swore that not even his own son would live to rule in his stead. Better that Celtic Britain fall into ruin than for his fame to be eclipsed.
To that end, the High King set his sharp mind and his iron will to develop his strategies.
For many hours, Uther schemed in his web like the spider he had become, until he eventually determined to send his sword and his crown to the Bishop of Venta Belgarum, thereby charging the Church with the selection of his successor. Uther trusted to the jealousies and fears that divided Christian from pagan to keep his throne free from the iron fist of Artorex.
In her sumptuous room, surrounded by fine cloth, jewellery and Roman glassware, Ygerne decided that Venta Belgarum would never be her home again. Her daughters were twisted and embittered by her bad choices, and to watch Morgan’s cruelties and the vanities of Morgause prolonged Ygerne’s pain. She’d return to Tintagel as soon as she could, leaving all the fripperies of her position behind her. Myrddion would know what to do. He’d been the architect of her fall from grace, albeit unwillingly, so he should be inveigled into helping her escape from her gilded, uncomfortable cage.
Uther would scarcely notice her absence.
Queen Ygerne stared into her silver mirror. Her grey eyes, so different from her son’s cold orbs, softened as she remembered her father’s face, like - yet unlike - Artorex. Uther may have stamped his bloodlines on the young man in hair and body, but the boy’s firm jaw and those colourless eyes belonged to her father.
In the Great Hall, those grey eyes had looked at, and over her, without any recognition. Why should he care for her? Had she fought for him when he was too small to fight for himself ? She had not. Had she taken the honourable course when she discovered Uther’s plot to trick her into his bed? No. She never even thought to open her veins. And hadn’t she stayed with her monster husband for decades, when common morality suggested that she should have left?
For the first time in many years, Queen Ygerne laughed freely. Uther was embarked upon a fruitless struggle with his only son that would poison the last years of his life. Beyond doubt, Uther would fail. Her father had been a warrior beyond peer and Uther had been the greatest tactician of Celtic Britain. So what would Artorex, the culmination of them both, achieve?
‘More than you, Uther. More than you!’
Four weeks after his audience with the High King, Artorex returned to the Villa Poppinidii with the core of the impossibles at his back. He would have travelled during the first week after his return from Anderida, but he was obliged to make provision for the wounds of his men, and Venta Belgarum was unwilling to let their hero go. Also, to his shame, a corner of Artorex’s heart feared to face his daughter and the decisions that he’d made for her future.
The spring thaw had begun and the earth was sodden with seeping water that fed the bulbs, flowers and weeds as they thrust their green heads through the moist farm soil. The Villa Poppinidii was at its best with the peach and pear trees laden with blossoms, buttercups growing in yellow drifts in the fields while newborn calves, foals and lambs frolicked in the long grasses.
Artorex could smell the rich, heady aroma of life beginning again as spring embraced the land once more.
‘Winter has passed, so joy and happiness can return,’ Artorex said softly to Ector as the two men gazed over the fertile fields. ‘All that death and waste was for such a petty thing - a crown that is as dead as stone. This place was all I ever wanted, so why did the three travellers ever come to change the natural way of things?’
As always, Targo and Odin stood behind him, grim guardians who watched Artorex’s back at all times. They would have turned away from their master’s grief, but Ector was standing beside Artorex and Odin trusted no one.
‘Who can say why men are such cruel, brutal creatures, my son?’ Ector replied thoughtfully as one hand stroked his foster-son’s broad shoulders. ‘It’s the women who civilize and the men who destroy. I think often of my Livinia and her gardens, and of little Gallia as she found beauty at the edge of the forest in places where we see only usefulness.’
‘Aye,’ Artorex answered simply.
He gazed fondly at Ector and struggled to put his thoughts into words.
‘I will go to Gallia’s house soon but, before I do, there is a request I must make of you,’ the young man said gently as he fixed his gaze urgently on the older man. ‘It is a matter of importance to me, and I will ask you to swear your oath on the Villa Poppinidii and the memory of our Mistress Livinia that you will keep your word on this matter.’
‘Ah, young man, what have they done to you in the south that you can doubt me? You, more than any other person, should know that I’d do anything you ask of me, if I could. I don’t need to swear my oath, but I’ll accede to your wishes. I swear my oath on Livinia’s ashes, on this good earth and on the love that keeps me here where the world is quiet and pure.’
Ector’s face was old now and was seamed by wrinkles, but he was still as strong as an old oak and the years stood lightly on his balding head and huge shoulders.
‘Licia cannot continue to be my child.’
&
nbsp; Artorex’s voice was empty of grief, or filled with it, depending on the sensitivity of the listener.
‘I have been told that I am the legitimate son of Uther Pendragon, the last child of a warrior line whose blood has been poisoned by greed and corruption through many generations. I won’t expose Licia to ambitious men who’d exploit her to achieve their own ends.’
Then he sighed with all the regret that any true man can feel for the loss of his loved ones. He gazed around the fields and the mists of morning.
‘I want you to adopt Licia as your daughter. In these fields, she can grow tall and strong under your influence, just as I did. It is the best solution I can devise to ensure that she learns to live and laugh like her mother.’
‘But the Gallus family knows the truth of Licia’s birth,’ Ector protested.
‘Gallia’s family is much smaller now and her kin are very proud,’ Artorex responded. ‘They’ll follow your advice. Gallinus will understand the risks involved to his niece. Think, Father. She’s the granddaughter of Uther Pendragon, and she’s the niece of Morgan and Morgause, two truly frightening creatures. If Morgan knew that Licia still lived, she wouldn’t hesitate to snatch her away in an instant to teach her perversities. Can I permit such a fate for my little Licia?’
‘No!’ Ector replied forcefully.
‘If it be known in the future that she is my daughter, the Villa Poppinidii will become a magnet for the greedy, the violent and those men who’d want to father a son on her, even if rape was the only option. To such creatures, the grandson of Artorex would be a huge prize, and I wouldn’t wish such a fate upon her.’
‘Never!’ the old man hissed. ‘And I would die to prevent it.’
‘Then you must take her into your family. If such an arrangement would be acceptable to you, I would ask that I be permitted to become her foster-uncle so I can see her when duty permits. She is very young, and I’m certain she will forget me in time.’ Artorex’s face was infinitely sad. ‘I’ve never asked so much of any man as I now ask of you, Father. She’ll have a bride price of great worth, and the Villa Poppinidii will be safe, at least for the duration of my life. Gareth will see to everything else.’