by M. K. Hume
‘You do me an injustice if you suspect I’ll tittle-tattle,’ Targo stated. ‘I won’t blab, not even to Artor, if you don’t want me to. I can’t speak plainer than that.’ To show his good faith, he turned round to his young servant and ordered him to depart. ‘The boy’s gone, so we’re alone now. Whatever you’ve done can be kept private, between us.’
‘I’ve made a mistake, Targo,’ Myrddion began, in little more than a whisper.
‘What? Speak up, Myrddion, for Mithras’ sake. I’m old, and so are my ears.’
‘I’ve made a sodding mistake, Targo!’ Myrddion’s voice was sharp and almost desperate. ‘A huge error of judgement.’
Targo’s eyes disappeared into the folds of his eyelids like an old tortoise’s.
‘I’ve spoken too freely about our master, and heard advice that has upset me.’
Now Targo’s lips pursed as well. ‘Then you deserve to be upset, Myrddion. Go on. Spit it all out.’
Myrddion recounted his lesson with Nimue, feeling rather shamefaced as he watched the old soldier frown in disapproval.
‘Nimue didn’t mean any harm to our king, old friend,’ he assured Targo, though his voice was uncertain. ‘I have never really considered her opinions of Artor’s character problematic before. In fact, I’ve been more worried about my reactions to her as a young and desirable woman, if you understand me.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t bore me with your sudden rushes of blood to the head - or elsewhere - over a woman. Your whole conversation with Nimue yesterday was wrong! Nimue’s a sweet girl, and I don’t begrudge her an education, but you shouldn’t treat the king like one of your specimens in a jar.’
The king’s counsellor nodded. Targo’s point was valid.
The old soldier gazed around Myrddion’s comfortable room, and observed the many shelves supporting glass jars of powders, liquids and other sundry objects that the old mercenary would prefer not to imagine. His face was disapproving and his voice had the bite of suppressed anger.
‘You were wrong, Myrddion, to let the girl talk about her king in such a fashion, and doubly foolish to permit her to state the sodding obvious.’
Myrddion looked up sharply. ‘You think that I consider Artor to be a monster? No, Targo. No. Artorex was a fine youth, and Artor, as a man, has avoided all the pitfalls of power that have been thrown at him.’
‘He allowed Gaheris to be an emissary, didn’t he? You may fool Nimue. You may fool the world if you want, Myrddion, but you won’t fool me. Artor does what he must do, without scruple. I love him more than myself, but I can see the truth in him that you find so hard to admit. That’s why you’ve been looking so upset today. Nimue rubbed your nose in the unblemished truth about our king, and you didn’t like it.
‘We should consider his deficiencies from Artor’s perspective,’ Targo went on relentlessly. ‘Artor never acts on impulse, or to no purpose, even when those closest to him are at risk. Those people he loves maintain his humanity, but I sometimes believe he would sacrifice us all if it was necessary to keep the west safe for the Celtic peoples. Yes, he would. That’s why he’s a king worth worshipping, a man who has been forged for these terrible times. Our king knows what he is, and he often hates himself. Doesn’t he? How far can self-loathing be stretched before the man breaks into a thousand little pieces?’
Myrddion’s face was white with strain, but he couldn’t deny Targo’s assessments, which were as cruel as Nimue’s, and uttered with sad certainty.
‘God help us all if Artor loses those friends who offer him some measure of happiness,’ Targo concluded. ‘If that dark day ever dawns, he’ll be adrift in emptiness and the silence of loneliness.’
Both Myrddion and Targo sat silently, in their own separate miseries. Typically, Targo stirred first.
‘So was that all you discussed? Ye gods, but you’ve been indiscreet - and you’ve allowed the girl to know far too much. You can be such a fool at times, Myrddion, such a sodding fool!’
Myrddion was affronted, and showed it.
‘You committed treason by discussing the High King’s motives so recklessly,’ Targo said bluntly. ‘But, worse than this, you’ve half convinced yourself that Artor has some type of choice as to whether he acts like a saint or a sinner. His choice is the choice of a soldier, which means kill or be killed. Will this action harm the kingdom or help it? Will this man, or this family, be a danger to the security of the realm or not? And, if so, what should I do to protect the land? Should I kill the offending person? Should I kill the whole family, or the whole tribe? At the end of the day, Artor is responsible for what happens to the west. Whether he’s like his father or not doesn’t matter a fuck in the passage of time. He’s trying to stop the wind from blowing or the rain from falling and, because he’s brilliant, brave and so bloody determined, he’s mostly successful in all that he does. Yes, he has beloved friends, but he’d survive without us.’
Oddly enough, Myrddion felt a little better, and said so. Then, as he heated wine over a small iron stove, Perce returned to the room, looking a little better for having washed himself in the stream.
Odin also arrived, dwarfing the document cabinets and scrolls that were stored in Myrddion’s study. Artor was enclosed with the queen, so his shadowy bodyguards were free for an hour or two.
‘How goes the weapons training, Perce?’ Myrddion asked, mentally shaking his thoughts back to more mundane and bearable channels.
Perce shrugged, but Odin was uncharacteristically garrulous.
‘Perce moves like the warrior he is soon to become. He is very strong and determined, and he almost had my axe today.’
‘Well done, Perce.’ Nimue clapped her hands in pleasure.
The men turned in surprise as Myrddion’s apprentice, the subject of so much discord, tripped into the room.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked as Myrddion and Targo stared at her.
‘Is my hair coming undone?’
‘No, Nimue. We old men aren’t used to having beautiful young ladies among us,’ Targo murmured gracefully.
‘How nice.’ Nimue smiled. ‘But Perce is the hero here.’
Perce flushed with embarrassment and joy. Myrddion knew that the young man was the son of a thatcher, and that current wisdom gave him little hope of winning a warrior’s sword. But Artor was a fair man to his bones, and he would not forget his oath to Targo if it provided the old servant with some pleasure. Myrddion was certain that Perce would soon become one of Artor’s warriors, regardless of convention and the absolutes of birth.
‘What name will you take for yourself when you enter Artor’s guard?’ Myrddion asked in all seriousness.
Perce looked uncomfortable.
‘Out with it,’ Nimue demanded.
‘She’s a bossy little piece, isn’t she?’ Targo commented to no one in particular. ‘Look at Odin. He was given his title because we couldn’t pronounce his name, least of all understand it.’
‘My given name was Sven,’ Odin revealed, without a hint of resentment. ‘But Odin will do, may the gods forgive me.’
‘Your given name, at least, has a noble ring about it,’ Myrddion said. ‘But your birth name sounds like a basket full of snakes.’
Nimue was impossible to deflect once her curiosity was aroused.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t decided on a name yet, Perce. Knowing you as I do, you’ve been planning a suitable name for years.’
‘I want to be known as Percivale,’ the young man muttered. He was acutely embarrassed.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Myrddion asked. ‘These old ears are hard of hearing.’
‘I want to be known as Percivale Maladroit.’
‘Maladroit?’ Nimue looked at Myrddion for clarification.
‘The ill-made man,’ Myrddion explained. ‘It seems rather apt if you consider your past life.’ Then he smiled at the young man to show his approval of the name. ‘Artor wears his pearl ring to remind him of some truths that, mostly, he would prefer to f
orget. In particular, his kinship with Uther Pendragon. At least you will always have a tangible memory of what you once were.’
‘Pearls are for tears,’ Nimue said softly, her eyes far away.
‘Yes, and tears are the substance and the history of that ring,’ Myrddion said. ‘It decorated the lid of a pear wood box in which Uther kept jewels he took from Artor’s mother. The pearl serves as a salutary reminder of the corruption of power.’
‘The king does his best,’ Targo added, his voice as rusty as a very old gate. ‘I never met a great man who was not assailed by the power he held in his hands.’ Targo met and trapped Myrddion’s eyes as he spoke, reminding him that there was a fine line between academic study and betrayal.
‘Heart always mattered to our king . . . and motives, regardless of the outcomes.’
‘But the berserker still lives on in his heart,’ Odin said simply.
Nimue was ignorant of the northern term, and insisted upon a full explanation from Odin and Myrddion. Her mouth made a little moue of wonder as Odin haltingly explained how blood and battle rage could make a warrior impervious to terrible wounds, and how the warrior’s response was fuelled only by the lust to kill.
‘I have felt just like that. When that kitchen maid stole Gallwyn’s bed and her treasures before her flesh was even cold, a red haze filled my eyes and I wanted to kill her.’ Nimue was so solemn that the men had difficulty keeping straight faces.
‘The berserker never goes away,’ Odin warned.
‘But you can bury your anger under grand words and sensible thoughts, little one,’ Myrddion said encouragingly.
‘Julius Caesar didn’t bother trying to civilize the northern lands,’ Targo added as an aside. ‘And by all accounts he was one excellent soldier. But he wasn’t foolish enough to waste his legions on an enemy like the berserker hordes who’d fight until nothing and no one remained.’
‘So this berserker thing is bad?’ Nimue asked.
‘When it’s set free, it is very, very bad,’ Myrddion said seriously.
‘Poor Artor.’ Nimue sighed deeply.
For almost two years, life was tranquil at Cadbury Tor and in the thriving town below. Artor was regularly abroad, seeing to the demands of his kingdom by settling petty tribal squabbles, and crushing the Saxons if they attempted to extend their holdings. Myrddion enjoyed the pleasure of a woman’s company, and learned that a rare few, like Artor’s Gallia, had the power to be a companion rather than an object of sexual gratification. But with increasing insistence, Myrddion’s heart and body craved more than his mind cared to demand of Nimue. If she recognized his burgeoning love, she remained silent, for Myrddion would have been shamed by his attraction to her youth.
But two years is a long time in a dangerous land. One day, a Brigante warrior arrived at Cadbury Tor with a dirty bandage round his head and another, more dangerous wound in his thigh. Both wounds were suppurating with infection and Myrddion was forced to use fire, hot cauterization and a sharp knife to remove dying and dead flesh.
The warrior was impatient, eager to demand an audience with the High King, but fever laid him low, so Artor visited the Brigante in Myrddion’s makeshift infirmary. The news he brought turned Artor’s face to ice and sent the fortress into organized chaos.
Luka had become separated from his attendants while on a hunt, and had been set upon and killed by brigands. His body was found hacked to pieces, but his weapons were gore-spattered: he had marked his murderers before they nailed the bloody pieces of his body to an ancient oak.
Artor’s rage poured forth like a volcano of hot lava, scorching the very air in its passage.
By first light, the High King was abroad with a troop of one hundred men. For love of Luka, Myrddion braved the long and brutal ride to Verterae, deep in the heart of mountainous Brigante country. The warriors rode like madmen, driven on by Artor whose eyes were ghostly orbs in the deep, exhausted hollows of his eyes.
At Verterae, one of the warriors beat on the locked gates of the fortress with the pommel of his sword. Pale and shaking servants admitted the High King to the hall where Luka’s remains had been taken, and Artor saw for himself the butchered, quartered and beheaded body of his friend. Artor’s rage knew no bounds, his grey eyes burned, and Myrddion remembered Nimue’s warnings that Artor’s reaction to the death of a loved one could be excoriating rage followed by a cold, blood-freezing hunger for revenge.
Verterae woke to fear, hushed citizenry, whetstones sharpening weapons and a miasma of dread.
‘The Saxons or the Jutes didn’t kill my friend, for this isn’t their way. They are barbarians, it is true, but this murder was subtle as well as brutal. Luka’s murder bears all the marks of an assassination by his own people, who have always treated him like a pig. By debasing his body, they’ve left their signature on the flesh of my poor friend. They will rue the day they took Luka from me.’
The Captain of Verterae was shaking with apprehension and his bones turned to jelly under Artor’s basilisk glare. The man wished he were a Christian so that he could swear by the Virgin that he had no part in the assassination but, as a distant relative of King Luka, he was suspect, and he knew it. With rolling eyes and trembling fingers, he cast about desperately for some means of saving himself and his fortress, which Artor had threatened to raze to the ground.
Rhys ap Cernach, for such was his name, admitted that he had heard whispers of dissatisfaction among the ranks of the Brigante aristocrats. King Luka had been the first tribal lord to send cavalrymen to Artor when he was appointed Dux Bellorum by Uther Pendragon, and if gold was needed to pay and feed the High King’s forces, Luka would levy his own vassals to pay the Brigante share. Nor did he spare himself, giving gold, sons and time to the Celtic cause, and the rumblings against his rule had grown louder during his many enforced absences.
While Artor was still at Verterae, he sent Odin, Bedwyr and a small group of warriors to the tree where Luka had been executed and, from there, they were ordered to track the killers and hunt them down. Odin was charged with the task of bringing the murderers to Artor - alive.
Beset by more bad news, Rhys came to the High King and his adviser, Myrddion, late on the second day after Odin’s departure. His face was ashen with dismay.
‘Why the miserable face, Lord Rhys?’ Artor grated, for Rhys remained suspect of complicity in Luka’s murder until such time as he had positive proof of his innocence. ‘I’d swear someone had murdered your own mother.’
‘Better they had!’ Rhys muttered under his breath. Artor heard his words and his knuckles whitened.
‘What’s happened now?’ Artor demanded.
‘Word has come from Lavatrae of more treasonous murders in the Brigante towns. I’m loath to make you angry but, in this instance, I’m fortunate that I’ve been in Verterae with you for the past week.’
Artor’s brows rose. ‘Tell me and be done with it! I’ll not punish you if you have no part in treachery.’
‘The king’s three sons are dead, my lord. Murdered in their beds. Lord Luka’s grandson, who has just become a warrior, has fled to parts unknown, trusting that you will see justice done and punish the murderers. No one knows who is behind these crimes, as common men wielded the knives, but King’s Luka’s cousin, Simnel, has declared himself to be the new king, and rides to Melandra fortress to take up the reins of governance.’
‘Does he now?’ Artor whispered, and Rhys thanked the Tuatha de Danann that he wasn’t in Simnel’s shoes.
The room was cold, grey and damp after days of rain. Artor pushed both hands deep into the folds of his tunic and sat with his wolf cloak around his shoulders to warm his body. In the weak afternoon light beside the shutters, Gruffydd was sharpening Caliburn. His countenance was bland as he feigned concentration on his task.
‘Are you loyal to King Luka’s legitimate heir, Rhys, or will you support the usurper? I don’t really expect an answer, for how can I trust you to speak the truth? Instead, I ask you to place your wa
rriors under my command and ride with me to Melandra to see that justice is done.’ Artor’s voice was clipped, but not unkind. And, like any sensible man, Rhys thought hard as he considered his options.
Finally, he answered his liege lord.
‘I will hand over the entire resources of Verterae Fortress to you, my lord, for the Brigante tribe needs security. We cannot survive a war with all the tribes that will gather under your banner, Your Majesty. But most importantly, this cousin of mine, Simnel, has always been a sly and dangerous man, and no Brigante will be safe under his rule, including me. Better a civil war than obedience to a despot who leads the whole tribe to disaster.’
The next day, before a pallid dawn, Artor rode out and a force of two hundred and fifty armed men rode behind him. A day later, at Melandra, the cavalry camped, conspicuously, on a hill beside the fortress. The Roman structures of Melandra had never been subject to serious threat from enemies, so Luka had retained the buildings as an administrative centre. The Brigante lands had many other, easily defended, fortresses and Luka’s father had cherished Melandra for its deep forests and its fair views of the lowlands. Luka had also loved its vistas, so Artor felt a grim satisfaction in waiting for Odin’s return in the dim, green trees and the wide sun-drenched glades of Luka’s favourite town.
Odin and Bedwyr arrived five days after Artor had set his battle tent before the Melandra fortress. Two prisoners, their wrists and ankles chained together, were securely tied over their horses and their eyes were blackened and terrified from the ordeal they had undergone. One of the men sported a nasty sword cut across his ribs.
‘String them up to the nearest oak so all the assassins will know my intentions,’ Artor ordered, his eyes aglitter with something that was colder than frozen iron. ‘I’ll speak to the murderers shortly.’
Artor drank clean water and ate some nuts, fruit and stale bread with slow deliberation. Because he was expected to wait on Artor’s pleasure, Rhys served the spartan meal with his own hands in Artor’s leather tent. Behind the Brigante, Gruffydd cradled Caliburn and watched Rhys with unblinking attention. Rhys’s fingers trembled when he filled Artor’s cup with water, but he was past embarrassment in the presence of such dangerous men.