The Raven Warrior

by Alice Borchardt

  But he didn’t. He seemed to see nothing unusual. He snapped his fingers at the straying hound, called on it to heel, and strolled on.

  The girl laughed. The nobleman paused, looked back over his shoulder, seemed bewildered for a second. Then he shrugged, looked uneasy, and made the horn sign against the evil eye. He ordered the still straying hound back to heel and hurried on, vanishing in a moment into the pale mist.

  “You see,” she said. “They don’t and they never do. See us, I mean.”

  The fear Uther felt a moment before was nothing to the chill terror that filled his soul now.

  “No!” he said. He had difficulty articulating the word; his mouth was dry, his lips and tongue would hardly move. “No, they don’t, do they?”

  “Some places belong to us,” the young man said. “This is one of them.”

  They were Alex and Alexia, orphans of the Bagudae. Or so they introduced themselves.

  “They leave us, you know, on temple steps—to die or be taken and brought up, later to be sold as slaves.”

  “The Bagudae rescued us,” Alex said.

  “She was a courtesan in Alexandria,” Alexia told him. “We remember her . . . sort of, I think. We were too dark. She couldn’t convince her lover we were his children. We were an investment that never paid off, and when her lover left her—or was killed . . . we don’t know which . . .”

  “Politics is a lethal preoccupation,” Uther said.

  “Oh, definitely,” Alexia said.

  Alex continued, “She was loath to throw good money after bad and had her servants leave us on the porch at the Temple of Isis.” He added thoughtfully, “A good woman of business, though a poor mother.”

  “Yes,” Uther agreed. He felt slightly sickened but said nothing else.

  “You sleep now,” Alexia said. “The stew will be ready in a few hours. We will wake you when it is.”

  He felt he had endured too many shocks today, far too many for a man his age. He unstrapped the harp and rested it safely against the drift of dead leaves beside him. Then he loosened the laces on the soft boots he wore, wrapped himself in this mantle, curled up on the same pile of leaves, and slept.

  He found he lay knees drawn up on a mat in a tomb. A very simple lamp, with a thumb-depressed lip holding one wick, burned near the entrance. It illuminated a harp case leaning against the wall.

  He became aware that he inhabited a newly buried corpse. Oh, yes, he knew—as in dreams we know things we cannot know in the real world—that all this happened a long time ago. His spirit returned briefly to his cold, stiff flesh to be sure the harp was there. And when the lamp burned out, it would depart for its distant destination.

  Silence—the mind talks, never shuts up. Keeps up its constant commentary on the ever-changing flow supplied by the senses. It argues, analyzes, fears—is amused, discontented, blasphemes or laments. Silence—the tomb was silent, always would be silent, as its occupant lay in utter stillness, being transformed into dust.

  The lamp guttered, flared one bright flame, and lifted from the clay lip before utter blackness descended. The king’s mind ceased to speak as the flame dropped to a spark, glowed a spot of red in the darkness, then vanished.

  The music returned. He drifted among the leaves of a forest as gray rain pattered among them. The sea surged, pounded, hissed, roared. The wind spoke to the forest, a roar, a hush, a hiss, a whisper. Boughs groaned in a storm, rain not a patter but a pouring rush, a river ragged between its banks thundering, gurgling, sucking, and sobbing. The limbs and knobs of branches clattered in the freezing winter blasts. Tree trunks snapped in the cold snow cascaded from roofs with wet thuds. Big snowflakes tinkled as they fell during a windless, frozen night.

  Uther tossed in his sleep as a rabbit screamed its death cry in the jaws of a fox. A stag belled, crashing his antlers against the brushwood to clean them of velvet, and blared his challenge to the other males. Uther’s people sang their prayers and in the music found more meaning than in the woods.

  When he woke, he found the harp was already in his hands. He was tightening the pegs to tune the strings.

  The next day, they stopped at an inn. Uther saw two things clearly. One was how easy it would be to fool people about his identity.

  The night before, he’d shaved both beard and mustache. He looked a different man even to himself, and he reflected that his problem might be proving his identity to those nobles in London who knew him and had, he hoped, remained loyal. He had no mirror, but used a pool near the spring to study his face, and the transformation had been astonishing.

  The second had been the power of his harp.

  The inn was a poor enough place, part of a villa on the road to London. The wealthy who rode in mounted parties guarded by Saxon warriors were lodged at the villa, a wealth-fortified dwelling that overlooked the road from a nearby hill. The inn at the crossroads was much less of a secure place. A room with tables and benches, and barrels ranged against the walls were tapped for beer, wine, and mead. A fireplace at the north end of the room served for cooking, and indeed, when the king entered, several birds were turning over the flames, the spit driven by a blind, discouraged-looking turnspit dog walking in a cage near the fireplace.

  “I think the beer is safest here,” Alexia whispered softly.

  “Where do the guests sleep?” Uther asked, glancing around.

  “There is a loft over the fireplace,” Alex answered. “But were I you, I would wrap my mantle around myself and bed down on the floor.”

  Alexia laughed. “The loft has straw in it. They don’t change it often, and it is . . . shall we say, ‘inhabited.’ ”

  Uther shivered. Not much choice. Outside, the wind was blowing in hard gusts. The sky was gray. Uther knew by dawn the skies would be clear but the dew would be frozen on the grass blades. Sleeping in the open without shelter would be miserable tonight. The inn offered the best chance of even a halfway comfortable night, even though Uther noticed that when the wind gusted hard outside an icy draft swirled around him and the toes in his boots were numbed by the sudden chill. His bones ached and he knew it would rain soon. So he resigned himself to a hard bed.

  The woman who kept the taps approached him as he entered.

  “Ale,” he said, “for me and my friends.”

  She eyed the pair askance. “Can you pay with anything better than a song?”

  Her eyes and nose were red. She seemed angry and sad. Then he reflected what her life must be in this wide spot on the road to London and pitied her.

  He gave her three coppers from his scrip and got a look of respect in return. Then she directed them to a seat on the bench closest to the fire, not an unmixed blessing, since the firewood was green, wet, or both. When the wind gusted, it made his eyes tear.

  Currency was catch as catch can, since most of the mints had stopped working when the Romans left. Copper was circulated until it wore away. Silver suffered from heavy clipping (the edges were shaved off and the shavings melted down by the money changers, attached now only to aristocratic households). The few who had gold hoarded it, so the woman probably never saw much.

  The three coins vanished into her clothing and would probably suffice to buy the three of them food and lodging for the night.

  The wretched dog on the turnspit wheel slowed to a stop. The woman smacked him with a strap, and the dog began to walk again and the spits to turn.

  The king averted his eyes. The animal had once been big, perhaps a mastiff used to run down wolves or other dangerous game. Why it had been mutilated and put to this work he couldn’t imagine. But then, perhaps he should be grateful. The thing was only a dog. He had a time or two seen children treated the same way.

  The king shivered, not completely from the cold, and tried to warm his hands at the inadequate blaze. Outside the rain began. He saw more people were entering the room, some travelers, others looked to be servants or tenants of the estates nearby, come to get out of the weather and have a drink. Their clothing s
teamed and the room began to stink.

  He and his friends were served ale and bowls of stew. To his surprise, the food was good, though the stew was more vegetable than animal, mostly turnips and dried apple with some sort of sausage. The bread on the table was laced with onions and cheese, and as he ate, the woman pulled a bird off the spit and placed it on a bread trencher near his hand.

  Alexia reached for the bird, a look of inquiry in her eyes. Uther nodded. She pulled off a leg and thigh for him and shared out the rest with her brother.

  When he was finished eating and drinking, the woman returned and offered him a basin with warm water to wash and a clean cloth to dry his hands. Uther sighed. Three coppers, such service. This was probably the best this little inn had to offer.

  “My lord.” The words were whispered behind him, then echoed, “My lord, my lord, domine,” the old Latin form.

  Uther hesitated, not sure this might not be a trick. Were itinerant singers called my lord?

  He turned and saw that behind him the room was full. At least thirty pairs of eyes studied him, looking out of the darkness. Some were eating and drinking, but others simply sat, hands folded, watching him. These were the poorest, who probably had no way to pay the score.

  “My lord,” the whisper came again, “give us a song.”

  Outside the rain was changing to sleet. He could hear the tinkle against the wattle-and-daub walls. He knew it would be beginning to freeze the water running in the thatch above.

  His heart faltered. He could almost hear it miss a beat; perhaps it did. The terrible truth was he didn’t know if he had a song to give them. He certainly hadn’t one this morning. Tuning the harp had been easy, well and good. He had done that. But except for a few limited strains he somehow remembered even after all these years, it seemed he had forgotten most of what he knew.

  He easily fell prey to discouragement, imagining that in the past he had only succumbed to vanity in believing he could ever join the company of bards; the great bards that chronicled his people’s history, achievements, and, if the truth be known, their rich, ancient philosophy of life. He had been preparing to present himself for examination at the winter festival when Morgana had come to tell him his brothers died in Gaul. . . .

  He had some silver in his scrip. Not much, but enough to buy drunken oblivion for everyone in the room. One silver coin would probably be sufficient. The woman who kept this place probably hadn’t seen above seven or eight silver coins in her life.

  Her voice broke in on his thoughts, sharp, shrewish, angry.

  “What! Now I know why you’re all here . . . and on a stinking cold night like this. Come to make fools of yourselves over a man with a dough cutter.”

  Uther flushed at the crude term for any stringed instrument.

  “Get out of here, you stupid pig fuckers! You mind your business, I’ll mind mine. He’s paid and paid enough not to be bothered with the likes of you!” She swung the strap, the one she’d used on the dog, at a beggarly-looking man behind Uther.

  Just then a strong gust of wind struck the building. The fire belched smoke into the room and everyone turned away, coughing, eyes tearing. Uther thought of his vision of the tomb. This is the fate of all living things, silence and darkness. Eternal silence? Eternal darkness?

  Reason enough for music; reason enough to send his hands groping for the harp in its case at his side even as he spoke to the tavern mistress in gentle reproof.

  “Madam! I will sing for a bit. It doesn’t matter. Share a bit of drink with the thirsty and dry. I will pay the score.”

  The woman looked about to be angry until Alex proffered a silver coin. She made the coin vanish so quickly, Uther almost wondered if he had seen it in the first place.

  When his hand touched the harp, Uther heard the music twining, rising, falling, rippling in his mind. Dancing with the whispered sounds of sleet on the walls, the roof, the parchment-covered windows of the room.

  Melodies he hadn’t thought of in years filled his mind. Alexia produced a double flute, Alex a shawm. His fingers wandered on the strings, testing, listening to sounds he couldn’t believe he was making. So beautiful they were even in their individual purity to his unaccustomed ears.

  The fire on the logs before him hissed as the damp, wind-driven sleet blew into the grating above it. He began to play to the flames, blue, yellow, and then warm orange and even dull red as they ate into the green logs. Softy, he called them, summoned them to warm the room and the people crowded into it. The fire rose a bright yellow, glowing like a sun on water, flames in a silken presence fluttering above the logs in the joyous combustion, the glow of life itself.

  The central log on the fire disintegrated, splitting in the center and drenching the other two logs that hadn’t quite caught in glowing, dull-red embers and flaring white sparks. The wood hissed again. Steam rose and then was whisked away by rising flame.

  Uther didn’t hear the gasp of awe behind him or the tremble in the rippling, flooding notes of the flute Alexia played. He was gone, entering his music the way light transforms mist into columns of haze, turning a many-pillared forest into a cathedral of illusion.

  The firelight filled the room, glowing on the rapt faces of his audience listening to a paean of delight, and swept them away with him into the contemplation of a universe fashioned, transfiguringly loved, and ordered by God.

  When he was done, not finished but simply too weary to continue, the storm was past and the night sky blessed by uncountable stars, the air crisp and cold. The fire on the northern hearth was burned to ruby coals. The crowd took their leave quietly, the only sound the crunch of footsteps in the frozen grass. They had all had as much as they wished to eat and drink, and the hostess was enriched by not one but two silver coins. He was trembling with weariness when he and the others sought their beds on the floor.

  The dog woke him, slobbering, whimpering, moaning. He opened his eyes. Alex was resting against his back, Alexia snuggled at his stomach. He had known a time when a warm female body would have filled him with a frenzy of desire. In the morning he would tell them to change places, but otherwise, he was only annoyed. And even so not very annoyed. Together they were warm as a blanket.

  He looked toward the fire and saw a kind of silver haze over the coals. It triggered the memory of the last time he had seen his son. Arthur had come to him in the night, calling him to witness Merlin and Igrane working black magic. Later, upon thinking of the fact that his son got into his room unchallenged, he had come to the conclusion that a subtle but powerful spell had been at work.

  He had seen the same haze near the fire, but thought it only moonlight. But tonight there was no moon. He remembered the absolute dominion of the stars when he stood at the door to say farewell to his audience.

  Magic, and tonight of all nights. The thought wearied him. He was a man of his hands—as it is said—be his hands on a harp or a sword.

  His right hand closed on the hilt of the sax in his belt. The dog was silent now, but Uther heard paws scrabbling on the floor. The sound was frantic.

  Uther thought of the miserable, mutilated animal. Perhaps it would be a good thing if he took the sax and struck the animal in the ribs on the left side where the heart thuds. A good deed, but what was using the dog to seek him?

  “Yes, a good deed!”

  The voice was a whisper that came from near where the dog lay. Uther knew the voice.

  “Merlin!”

  Laughter, audible laughter originating in the dog’s throat.

  “I am tormenting it, trying to get it to rise and rend you.” This voice was only in his mind. Then, “I am lost. Lost, lost,” the dog moaned. “In hell—in the dog—in the forest. In hell, in hell.”

  “Merlin, what has got its claws in you?” Uther asked.

  “The king, the king.”

  “I am the king. I have done nothing to you,” Uther whispered.

  “Bade. Bademagus!” Sobbing, cursing incoherence succeeded this statement. The sou
nds were separate. The voice in his mind, the struggles of the animal near the fire, were loud in the room.

  “Stop,” Uther whispered. “You will wake the rest. Is that what you want? The woman will take a strap to the dog and you will feel it. How long have you been in the dog?”

  “A night, a day, a night. Until the tally was two weeks.”

  The animal’s mind is winning, Uther thought.

  “It wanted respite for its suffering,” Merlin’s voice continued. “It got meeeeeeee.” The word trailed off in a wail of despair.

  “You tried the magic of Dis. But hell is where you belong, sorcerer. You and your bitch, fuck, you tortured my son.” Uther was surprised at the grim satisfaction in his soft voice.

  “You tried. You failed. You didn’t save him. You didn’t stop us in time.” There was a vicious spite in the answer.

  “Be still!” Rage choked Uther. “I’ll kick the dog’s ribs in—and enjoy it. I know the damage you and she did. I know. I see it sometimes in his eyes. But not, thank God, always. No, not always.”

  The animal panted, whimpered.

  “Come here!”

  “No,” Uther answered. “Ruined as that animal is, I’ll not step within reach of its chain.”

  The animal’s teeth ground. “Would you know what path to take to defeat the Saxons?”

  The last thing Uther wanted was the advice of whatever was left of the sorcerer. It was obvious there had been a falling-out between the two villains. And Bade, Lord of the Summer Country, had gotten the better of the encounter. But from the first that devil Merlin had been the most politically astute of his advisors.

  As a king, he had no right to turn away useful information, no matter how repellent or dangerous the source. He rose, pushing himself slowly and carefully to his feet. As he did, he drew the sax, smothering the blade in the folds of the mantle. It might take a second to deploy it, but that couldn’t be helped. The dog was blind, but he didn’t know if the sorcerer’s spirit also was.

  He took the few steps, which brought him to where the dog lay near the spit wheel. The panting breaths of the crippled beast were rapid and harsh.