It was beautiful.
Maeniel stepped through the arched door. The glass dome at the top near the smoke hole was transparent, but since it was night only the stars shone through. They were reflected in a cataract of brilliance on the polished stone floor. The hearth was in the center; three steps led down into the fire pit, where a fire blazed, warming the room. It was a very big room, but still the firelight was reflected by the black, polished floor and the matte-finished walls. In addition, there were candles, many candles, each in a tall holder behind a table that encircled almost the whole room.
A good many people were already present; and they wandered about, sipping wine from Roman glass beakers and visiting with friends and acquaintances. Maeniel had lately encountered the new invention, the fireplace with a chimney, on the continent. He liked the central hearth a bit better, but it used a lot of fuel. He had no doubt a world warmed only by fireplaces was approaching. Yet, there was something very democratic about this ancient hearth. People could gather around it and all be comfortable, whereas with a fireplace those few who were able to get the seats closest to the fire harvested most of the warmth and light, while the rest were consigned to increasing levels of cold and darkness. It was rather like what was happening all over the dying Roman Empire.
Someone offered him a cup of wine, a very attractive serving girl with very blond hair, blue eyes, and fair eyelashes. The cup was glass blown over a gold frame, but when she drew near to pour the wine, he found himself immersed in a stink of fear. Then he saw the collar she wore and noticed all the other women were similarly collared. She offered to conduct him to the king. Maeniel followed.
A man he took to be Vortigen was seated at the table directly opposite the door. When he reached the king the girl turned and walked away to attend to other guests. Maeniel knelt.
“Get up,” Vortigen said. “All I can see of you is your eyes. Please, come around and take a seat on the bench beside me.”
Maeniel rose and nodded, seeing that the table—a work of art itself, being made of old oak and carved along the edge with the dragon motif of the royal house—was not one table but six sections with openings so that guests could pass between them. The woman who had led him to the king was walking along with her crystal pitcher, filling the cups of a few seated guests.
“She is beautiful,” the king said. He sounded uneasy. “Want her?”
“No.” Maeniel’s answer was a resounding one, a little too vehement.
The king made a quick keep-it-down gesture. Maeniel apologized immediately. “I’m sorry,” he said more softly, and then, trying to sound regretful, he said again, “No.”
“If what the letter said about you is true,” Vortigen said, “I can understand why you might find her disturbing. They are all slaves, you know, purchased for the occasion by my sons and brothers-in-law of Anglia, Sussex, and Essex. No women were invited to this feast. The women are for the convenience of the guests. That, and that only, is the reason they are here.”
“Yes,” Maeniel said. He studied the people, who were still crowding into the room. Each man seemed to have from one to four Saxon warriors in his entourage. Maeniel walked around the table and seated himself beside the king, saying, “With your permission, my lord.”
Vortigen waved away his apologies and placed a hand on his knee. “And how is my old friend and correspondent, the bishop of Aries?”
“He’s well,” Maeniel said, “and sends you his greetings.”
“And is he still involved with the Bagaudae?”
“Yes, and it is on their behalf that I have come here. I have been told their activities are even more prevalent in this country.”
“They are,” the king told him. “It is for this reason that the Saxons have been imported here by my relatives along the coast and the Saxon shore … to suppress the brotherhood of the Bagaudae.”
Maeniel nodded. “The same way the Gauls used the Franks to collect taxes and suppress rebellion among their own people.”
The king nodded sadly. “As high king I have warned them that the raids along the shore would cease, the land grow more profitable, if they remitted taxes rather than trying to crush their own people by employing the Saxons as mercenaries. But all they learned from the Romans was how to destroy and how to take. They are loyal only to their own interests. Hence, we are overrun with tribesmen from the continent, and the people abandon their lands and flee. This has not happened in the north. We stood fast.”
He sighed. “I am a weary man. All my life I have fought the long defeat.”
And indeed, to Maeniel’s eyes he did look weary. Though Maeniel knew him to be only forty, the king’s hair was lightened by streaks of gray and his face was deeply lined by a fatigue no sleep could ever banish.
“All the Romans did was steal,” Maeniel said. “And all they accomplished was to rupture the ties that bound the chieftains to their own people and destroy any ability of the ordinary man or woman to call even the least of these rich high lords to account for their actions. The landowners are the tyrants and the barbarian warriors are the instruments of their pleasure. The smallholder, the craftsman skilled or unskilled, is nothing to them. The Romans appreciated beauty, but they turned to their slaves to create it; and indeed in Roman lands the singer, the musician, the dancer, the sculptor, the painter are all slaves, as are the thinkers, prelates, and any others who do not devote themselves to the arts of war and oppression. This is and was their legacy, and we are left to struggle along with this curse as best we can.”
“You say it well. I can see where the good bishop finds many of his arguments,” Vortigen said.
“I have had a long time to think,” Maeniel said. “But perhaps we can stop the rot here. Even in Gaul the Bagaudae keep the dream, the hope of resistance, alive.”
“I have no help to offer you,” Vortigen said. “If my family ever knew I had entertained an emissary from the Bagaudae and a follower of Pelagius, I would have a great deal more troubles with my subkings than I have now. I greatly fear I have neither men nor money to offer your distinguished patron. But we will speak about this later, and perhaps I can find something to offer you. One thing I cannot give you is a seat by my side, but I will place you at the end of a table near the door.”
Maeniel nodded. “I am honored to be here at all,” he murmured.
The throng in the hall was growing. A big man wearing a sword and accompanied by three large Saxon warriors swept into the room. The servant who had placed Maeniel’s sword followed.
“He’s armed,” Maeniel said.
Vortigen studied his guest sadly. “Of course. No one would take his sword. This is Merlin, or rather the merlin. Just as I am Vortigen and the vortigen.”
“You confuse me,” Maeniel said.
“It is a riddle, a riddling question,” Vortigen said.
“I have heard of Merlin, though. He is the chief druid of Britain and the archbishop of Canterbury.”
“Yes.”
“He is a young man to hold so high an office,” Maeniel said.
And indeed, the man Maeniel looked on did appear young. He was dark, as many north Britons were, and yet fair at the same time with white skin fine as alabaster and wide-set, piercingly blue eyes. His hair was black and worn to his shoulders. He was dressed magnificently. His rank demanded no less. He wore dark suede riding pants, cross-gartered leggings, a tunic of midnight blue silk embroidered with stars in gold. His sword belt was heavy with moonstones, opals, and gold. He wore a scarlet velvet mantle.
“He is the midnight realm of Dis Pater come to earth,” Maeniel whispered.
“Don’t speak so,” Vortigen answered and made a sign against the evil eye.
Merlin left no doubt who and what he was, for he immediately strode not around the fire, as ordinary mortals do, but through it, down three steps and into the flame. Maeniel and Vortigen rose to watch his progress as he walked across the bed of seething coals.
It may not injure him, Maeniel though
t. Sometimes those without unusual powers can walk through fire and not be harmed if they are quick enough; however, clothing usually did not share the immunity of the flesh under it. Surely that silk tunic and mantle will catch. But they didn’t, and as if to laugh any doubts about his magical prowess to scorn, Merlin paused to kick a heavy flaming oak butt aside.
A fountain of sparks rose into the air surrounding him like fireflies in the summer twilight, but Maeniel could see that they did him no harm. Nowhere was his skin scorched, or even his clothing, and had he been merely mortal they would have, must have, but they didn’t. When he reached the other side and climbed the three steps up, he presented himself to Vortigen, now standing in front of his chair at the table. He did not bend his knee to the king, and Maeniel remembered that there was a law in some Celtic lands that not even a king could speak before his druid. A murmur of awe filled the room, closely followed by applause.
Merlin frowned.
“Greetings, Merlin,” Vortigen said. “And are you here to amuse us with your conjurer’s tricks?”
Maeniel could see the man was stung. “Conjurer’s trick, my lord Vortigen?”
Maeniel heard the subtle insolence in the my lord.
“And why are you wearing your sword? I believe you promised to leave it behind when you attended this gathering. Our agreement was no arms.”
And then the servant was standing behind Merlin. He seemed to have gotten there without anyone quite knowing how. He bowed low. “My lord?” he asked. “I believe we had a similar conversation on the stairs.”
Merlin turned and looked at the servant; his back was to Maeniel, but he saw the results of the look as the man took two steps back. To Maeniel this was a new kind of power.
Merlin turned to Vortigen. “What is this, my lord king, no trust?”
“No,” Vortigen said. “No exceptions. Your weapons.” He pointed to the door. “Or go.”
Merlin unbuckled his sword belt.
“Give it to Vareen.”
The servant bowed and took the belt from Merlin’s hand. As he did, Maeniel saw his face twist in pain, and Maeniel heard a hiss and smelled a stink of burning. Vareen’s face went white.
“There is no need to punish my servants because you are angry with me,” Vortigen said.
“I think there is,” Merlin said, “a need to discipline any who would try to make themselves greater than they are by trespassing against those of infinitely higher station.”
Vareen’s face smoothed out. “A small matter,” he said, “a trifle, really.” He smiled into Maeniel’s eyes, turned, and departed.
Merlin scanned the room, evaluating then dismissing each man he saw until his gaze fell on Maeniel. He made as if to dismiss him in a perfunctory manner, but his eyes returned to rest on Maeniel almost in spite of himself.
“I believe I know everyone here … but this one. It seemed when I entered you were in close conversation with him. Am I interrupting anything?”
“No, he is simply a messenger from an old friend, Cosmos, the bishop of Aries. He brought me news and a letter from my friend.”
“And his name?” Merlin demanded.
A strange tension thrummed in the air. Maeniel opened his mouth to give the answer himself, but Vortigen forestalled him. “He is called the Gray Watcher.”
Merlin smiled, or rather demonstrated he had teeth. “Watcher? I thought you said he was a messenger.”
“Sometimes that, also,” Vortigen said, “but I think we might be seated. The feast is about to begin. My lord Merlin, you will have the seat on my left, the seat of honor. The Gray Watcher will have the seat on my right.”
Maeniel felt mild surprise. Vortigen had said he must sit at the foot of the table. He wondered what caused the change of plans.
Merlin showed his teeth again. Maeniel felt right at home. Did humans really think those smiles fooled anyone? Maeniel understood now why he was uneasy. There was enough hatred packed into this chamber to begin a conflagration to burn all Britain.
He was prescient. He just didn’t know it. And again he wondered at the willingness of humans to use social lies to cover the fact that they loathed one another. Had he felt the same way about someone, or even some thing, the way most of these humans did, he would have gone fifty miles out of his way to avoid that person or thing. But here they were, all together and contemplating how quickly they could find a way to cut one another’s throats. He felt a rather dismal certainty they wouldn’t do it here, but aside from that, he knew all bets were off.
One of the mountainous Saxons who arrived with Merlin was seated on the other side of Maeniel. “That is the woman’s seat,” he said, pointing down to the place on the bench where Maeniel was sitting.
“Indeed,” Maeniel said.
“If the queen were here, she would be seated where you are.”
“Since she is not, I will keep it warm for her.”
“You are not insulted?” the Saxon asked. “Most men would be insulted to be told they are seated in a woman’s place. They would be afraid someone might think to treat them like a woman.” The Saxon gave a sly smile.
“I’m not interested in being insulted,” Maeniel said. “I’m interested in being full. I’m hungry. Insult me after dinner, then I will have time for you.”
“Maybe I will insult you after dinner,” the Saxon said, “and treat you like a woman, too.” He laughed at his own sally and elbowed his other seat mate, another of Merlin’s big Saxons.
Maeniel, who wanted no fight at a king’s table, looked over at the Saxon, a long, slow, considering sort of look.
“You have eyes like a wolf,” the Saxon said. The smile dropped from his face. “I have killed wolves.”
“And I,” Maeniel said, “have killed men.”
He felt the weight of the Saxon’s hand on his leg. Maeniel’s hand dropped, and a second later the hand that had been on his thigh was twisted up between the Saxon’s shoulder blades. The Saxon’s other hand was groping for his table knife.
“Put it down,” Maeniel said. “I can, and will, break your wrist.”
The Saxon was quiet. No one else seemed to be taking any notice. The servants were passing out cups and the women were following with downcast eyes, filling them. Vortigen was looking straight ahead, a small smile on his lips; next to him Merlin was watching Maeniel from the corner of his eye.
“You will respect the king’s peace or I will slit your throat with your own table knife,” Maeniel said softly.
The Saxon made no answer.
Maeniel brought the man’s shoulder almost to the point of dislocation. Perspiration broke out all over the Saxon’s face.
“You will do as he says.” The voice was Merlin’s, speaking from the other side of the king.
“Yes-s-s-s-s.” The word hissed out, like steam escaping from a kettle.
Maeniel released the Saxon’s arm. The Saxon let out a low groan of relief.
Vortigen murmured softly, “And left-handed, too.”
Maeniel was silent, but something about Merlin’s face bothered him. It was almost as if the man—priest, druid, or whatever he was—seemed satisfied, and Maeniel didn’t like that. No, he didn’t like that at all.
A cup was placed in front of him by Vareen. The girl following him was collared like the rest but either she didn’t mind her status or wasn’t afraid, because she smelled to Maeniel of the clean, fresh breeze coming from the water and of something less universal, rosemary perhaps. She smiled at Maeniel when she filled his cup, and he knew when he met her eyes that she was something unusual.
Ah, he thought. I am ever susceptible. Many things I dislike about humans, but their women—never. She had a smile for him in her eyes. The bishop had warned him about women. He hadn’t heeded the warning, but then he never did. But for them, the fair ones, I had rather been a wolf. The gray people are far less complicated to deal with, was his thought.
“I don’t recognize her,” the Saxon muttered. “She wasn’t one of the ones
I rounded up.”
He was speaking to his friend seated beside him. The anger Maeniel felt when the Saxon had touched him without his permission had extended his senses full stretch.
“Damn,” the other whispered back. “She might be one of Vareen’s people. The old fox is a sly one. I wonder how many he managed to plant among the dinner guests?”
“I don’t know,” the Saxon said, and shuddered.
“Someone walk over your grave, Crook Nose?” the other warrior said. “Surely the British pig eater didn’t twist your arm that hard.”
Maeniel realized they were speaking in low voices and in their own language, and he was sure they felt secure. Not only did they think their whispers wouldn’t be heard, but even if overheard, they would not be understood. He reached for the wine before him, lifted the cup to his lips, and drank.
Very good, he thought. “From one of the Roman villas in Gaul.”
“He shouldn’t have been able to do that,” Crook Nose said. “He’s not that big or strong.”
“You see magic everywhere.”
“That’s because it is. Those drui—”
“Be quiet.”
Maeniel felt Crook Nose jump as his companion kicked his ankle.
“Don’t even speak of that.”
Maeniel took half a cup of wine, then he stopped because he was beginning to feel it; but he noticed no one else did. They all drained their cups with a right good will. The women made the rounds again with the wine. Merlin rose. He was holding a cup in his hand. It was large, bound at the edges with expensive filigree work, and set with rubies. Something about the rubies bothered Maeniel’s eyes. They seemed to stand out from the cup in a strange way.
“Let us drink to our king and the hard-won peace we now have all over this island.” Merlin stretched out the cup toward Vareen and commanded, “Top this off.”
As Vareen came forward, Maeniel saw it before anyone else. It was not a cup Merlin held in his hand but a glowing golden serpent with ruby eyes. Vareen screamed as the serpent lashed out, embedding its fangs in his wrist. At the same moment, Maeniel felt the steel in his own body. He turned. Crook Nose had driven a long knife, the sort the Saxons were named for—a sax—into his belly below his ribs. Maeniel slammed one hand into the Saxon’s shoulder and the other into the side of his jaw, twisting the Saxon’s body one way and his head the other, snapping his neck.
The Dragon Queen Page 2