The Raven Warrior

by Alice Borchardt

  She bent over and took the largest one, cradling it in the palm of her hand. “Doesn’t seem dangerous,” she said, then called on her own particular spirits.

  The palm of her hand filled with water, and the dark object suddenly took on a jellylike consistency. She dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a slight plop. Just at that moment a breeze blew through the opening in the wall at the far end of the room. Or at least it seemed a breeze. It swirled the dust left by the powdered bone into a mini-whirlwind and sucked it out through the opening in the broken wall into the light beyond.

  Black Leg shivered.

  She whispered, pointing down, “Look.”

  It lay on the stone floor where the jellied mess had fallen from her hand. It looked like a dark hole in the stone floor, except that across its surface, symbols played, changing slowly in a sliding flux the way they had on the walls of the tunnel that brought them both to this strange, dangerous place.

  “What do they mean?” he asked her.

  “I told you. I don’t know,” she answered. “I am, by your standards, incredibly old, but believe me, that tunnel was very old and long-abandoned by its makers when I was born.”

  Black Leg reached down and touched the rag of blackness with one finger. And more quickly than thought, it flowed over his hand and formed a glove covering both hand and forearm.

  His shout of terror was lost in the rush of wings.

  Splitting the dog’s skull killed it instantly, and Uther knew for a timeless moment that the tormented beast was free of its earthly shell. The rejoicing on the animal’s part was simple, very pure joy. Inarticulate though the beast was, Uther sensed its gratitude.

  The flash of light represented Merlin’s fury as he reached out to try to destroy Uther and his power expended itself against a shield Uther hadn’t even known he possessed. Then both presences were gone. The dog’s dying shell convulsed at his feet, the broken skull spraying blood and brains all over the hearth. The banked fire hissed like a snake pit and a vile stench rose from the glowing ashes. The harp in its case thrummed a deep, rich chord and the flames leaped from the ashes, roaring, consuming the spattered flesh and blood.

  The animal’s carcass lay limp at Uther’s feet. Impelled by who knew what impulse, Uther hurled it into the seething blaze. There it seemed to become involved in a dash of magic. The fire suddenly damped down almost to nothingness and the dead animal writhed as though filled with unnatural life, lifting its head, eyes red, glowing like coals, livid tongue protruding from the jaws as though trying to get its legs under it to leap again for the king’s throat.

  Uther stood sword in hand, feet braced apart, ready to confront the dead thing should it attack again. He laughed the powerful, free laughter of a king. A king who, in the final analysis, committed soul and body to stand between his people and evil.

  That seemed a signal, and the fire blazed again, consuming the slain beast, the devilish instrument of darkness, Merlin’s darkness. Uther turned from the blaze and saw everyone in the room was awake, and through the small parchment-covered windows, the sun was rising outside.

  Bread, some fresh cheese, and oat porridge did for breakfast. Uther gave the lady of the house another silver coin to feed everyone still present. When the crowd departed (none thanked him), he helped the lady of the house clean and carry the trash to the midden heap.

  Alex and Alexia were indoors, boiling water to wash down the stone floor. Uther didn’t feel he owed her the labor, but in winter human dwellings were thick with smoke and stank of spoiled food, damp mold, and unwashed bodies. Uther simply wanted a breath of cool, clean, rain-washed air.

  It had been freezing the night before, but now the sky was blue, the brilliant, hard blue of winter. The air was almost balmy and last night’s sleet melted to puddles, reflecting the sky’s brilliant blue from their places among the muddy brown road.

  “I am Eme,” the lady of the house told Uther.

  Uther stopped, startled, for he knew what the name meant.

  “Do not use that name unless we are alone,” she continued in a dry voice. “No one else knows it. Least of all . . .” She pointed away toward the buildings of the villa topping a hill nearby. “Least of all the master of that stronghold.”

  “No,” Uther said. “No. I won’t. I wouldn’t, in any case.”

  She nodded. Then she glanced away at the villa, her eyes flat, cold, and empty.

  “I think he may suspect, but he doesn’t know.” She paused for a second, then added, “He calls himself Count Severius, but as far as I know, has no Roman blood.”

  “Wants the best of both worlds, doesn’t he?” Uther commented.

  “Wants the best of all worlds,” she answered. “He killed my son.”

  Oddly, Uther felt the weight of the harp on his back. He said the conventional thing. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was over ten years ago,” she replied. “There was no need. So many conquerors. Our family is buried deep. Even before the Romans, people from the Continent had defeated and pushed us aside. But we were among the priestly families and even the Romans deferred to us at least a little. Yet to take my son from me was cruel. A child—that is always cruel.”

  Uther nodded.

  “The boy played near the villa. The war dogs got him.” She laughed, a sharp cackle, snapping twigs. “When I asked for justice—” She pointed at the villa again. “—he gave me one of the dogs.”

  “An unworthy object for your cruelty.” Uther spoke sternly, but as if to an equal, because if the name were any indication, she might indeed be royal.

  “I know that now,” she answered. “But it is dead—and I didn’t speak to justify myself, only out of concern for you. He will hear about your music. There is little faith in my lord count, so he won’t believe all he hears. But he will believe enough to summon you to entertain his guests. Be warned. Hurry away now, if you wish to reach London, because those he summons cannot escape his hospitality until he gives them permission to depart.”

  Uther felt his neck prickle. He glanced again at the complex of buildings in the distance.

  “We will leave within the hour,” he said as he hurried toward the door.

  But the harp halted him. It strummed itself softly and in the distance he heard music. Even Uther didn’t remember the Romans. But sometimes, as with all ancient armies, they sang as they marched.

  The music was not like those melodies he had been taught. It was deep and harsh, like the discipline of a Roman legion, martial and masculine. They favored the pipe, drum, and trumpet, like the paean that took warriors into battle and celebrated valor in victory or defeat, Uther felt it through the soles of his feet, through his skin, and it resonated in his bones.

  He turned back toward the road.

  They came.

  Eme whispered, “Ahhhhh . . .”

  “The horse fights,” Uther said. “They will finish them here.”

  “Yes,” Eme answered. “It seems so.”

  “He wants to be king, this count?” Uther asked. “This count—would he be count of the Saxon shore?”

  Eme nodded. “Yes!”

  The music was closer. Uther stood, his back to the wattle-and-daub wall of the inn. Those remaining inside streamed out through the door, into the street, to watch the procession pass.

  A group of Saxon mercenaries came first. They wore the remnants of Roman garb, an odd mix, muscle cuirasses with plumed helmets, tunics, but with added trousers and cross-gartered leggings. They carried not the Roman gladius-type sword, but long swords.

  Uther didn’t see any spears, and he saw only one or two saddles. His eyes narrowed. Not true cavalry, they probably dismounted and fought on foot. His boys would make chopped meat of them.

  But fight they would, because the oval shields they carried were hacked and scraped, and each man was a scarred and tough-looking survivor. Each man was dripping with jewelry, the reward of victory. They were adorned with bracelets, arm rings, torques, and finger rings, a
nd glittering baldrics held their swords. They looked down at the largely peasant crowd with contempt.

  A mob as yet, Uther thought. Not an army, but dangerous, very dangerous.

  Behind them streamed what Uther thought of as the hungry ones. Younger sons who could afford horses but no really good swords. They carried long saxes, the single-edged knife that gave the Saxons their name. A good many Roman swords were in evidence, the short gladius, and even the curved scimitar Roman cavalrymen carried as a backup weapon. Boiled leather armor was the best these could muster.

  Last of all—trailing—the most dangerous of the gang were the rabble, in a way the most frightening ones of all, since they would, win or lose, stream onto the battlefield to cut the throats of the wounded for their valuables, or rob the dead. These were the men, and sometimes the women, who dreamed of battle and cared nothing of who won or lost. They would kneel on the floor beside the table of conquest and quarrel over the scraps that fell from the fingers of the powerful. It was a measure of the poverty in the three ancient kingdoms that there were so many.

  The high kings had once been incredibly powerful; and tribute from the south made them so, until the Romans came and diverted the wealth in the south to their own uses. The high king had once been able to call on the wealth produced by eighteen royal villas. Then the Romans took them and the tributary lands surrounding these centers. They diverted the goods in gold, other metals, and food crops produced by the villas to their own use, impoverishing the high king. Romans gone, the Saxons now controlled these important centers and were rapidly turning them into power bases.

  “This is the muster of how many of the southern villas?” Uther asked Eme.

  “Only one,” she answered.

  “Only one!” he repeated incredulously.

  She nodded.

  Gods above and below, Uther thought.

  But then it made sense. The Saxon lords would be recruiting as hard and fast as they possibly could.

  The Frankish king had things well in hand now on the Continent. Between the popes and the Lombards and the imperial government at Ravenna, Italy would be as quiet as it ever was. But in the north, beyond the Rhine coasts of Africa, and in those frozen lands deep in the North Sea that were only legends even to his people, they swarmed: Huns, Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, Alans, Franks, Burgundians, Frisians, Thuringians, Alemanni, Chastuari. And that list of names but scratched the surface of those pressing in at the gates, all dreaming of loot, women, and above all the rest, land. Land, and more land for themselves.

  They came and they died by the thousands, but those who survived, like the ones riding in the forefront of this mob, would grow rich and powerful, garnering the leavings of the dying empire. The Romans opened the floodgate when they took barbarian troops into the legions, and now were being overwhelmed by this human tide of warriors. And, of course, he and his people must face and try to contain them also.

  The music had not been played to announce the procession of warriors. The stallion was behind them. No one was taking any chances with the horse. He was led on a double lead by two groups of footmen, one on each side.

  An awesome beast, Uther wondered where the Saxons could have obtained him. At least seventeen hands, he dwarfed the beasts ridden by most of the Saxon warriors. The legs seemed oddly slender for so large a horse, but Uther saw, as the animal plunged and struck out with a forehoof at one of his human handlers, that the powerful legs were in perfect proportion to the rest of the deep-chested, strong-haunched body.

  There were three men on each lead rope. Three men on each side.

  “Hold him! Goddamn you, all of you!” someone shouted. “Hold him or I’ll have the six of you on crosses before nightfall!”

  “Speak of the devil,” Eme whispered.

  The man riding alone behind the horse wore gold Roman armor that blazed in the new sun.

  “Count Severius, I take it,” Uther whispered.

  He was big, a man whose size matched the bulk of the stallion. He also would dwarf other men the way the horse showed up the small size of other horses. The similarity ended there. The stallion was a gray, dark as a storm cloud, with almost black nose, mane, legs, and tail. The man was blond and beautiful. Clad in the Roman armor, he seemed a young god, the reincarnation of an Alexander or an Augustus.

  He rode a gray mare that might have been the female twin of the stallion being led along ahead of him. She was also magnificent and rather restive, Uther thought, as she chewed at the bit and danced sideways along the road.

  He concluded that she was probably the reason the stallion was so unruly. In fact, the curb she wore was so strong that red foam was visible at the corners of her mouth, and her head tosses flung it on the spectators lining the muddy trace.

  Uther was disgusted by the sight of so beautiful a creature as the mare being abused by a cruel curb. The disgust must have shown in his face, because the nobleman’s blue eyes met his. Uther knew he had been a king too long, because their gazes locked and held, and the blue glance fell first.

  The blond count checked the mare and guided her to where Uther stood, his back against the inn wall.

  “Who are you?” the count asked. “Who dares show your dislike for the evidence of my success and power?”

  Uther suddenly realized he was very much alone. A moment ago, he had been standing among others, watching the procession. Now they had suddenly vanished, even Eme.

  It wasn’t in him to deny the challenge.

  “A fair beauty,” Uther said, looking at the mare. “Too fine a beast to be ridden with so cruel a curb. And, my lord, I am not one of your people and was unhappily unaware my approval was to be demanded or even desired.”

  With difficulty, Uther kept himself from flinching, because he was sure a blow from the nobleman’s whip or fist would end the matter right there.

  But it didn’t come.

  Instead, the blond god laughed. The laughter didn’t reach his eyes. They remained as cold as the enameled blue winter sky.

  Then the man in the saddle leaned down close to him and spoke in a soft voice that included only the two of them.

  “You aren’t afraid of me, are you? Amazing! Almost everyone is afraid of me. Certainly all who know me are. Such ignorance, my friend, my very dear friend. You are in need of instruction. It will give me the greatest of pleasure to undertake that task. In fact, that is how I derive my greatest joy in life, from this process of instruction. It pleases me greatly to find I have acquired a new subject for my attentions. I think I will find you among the most gratifying of my acquaintances.”

  Then he eased the mare back to the center of the road, speaking softly as he did to one of his men.

  Uther felt a queasiness in his belly. How much of that was bluff? And how much was real? Most of it, was his own bleak reply. Men like this count had almost unlimited control over their dependents. The rickety structure of Roman law, and sometimes Christian teaching, had in the past served as some sort of check on the cruelty and ambition of men like this. But both were conspicuously absent now, and horrific stories circulated about the savage punishments decreed by the great land-owning noblemen for even the slightest infractions. Most of them were drunk with power. But even among tyrants, this one seemed exceptionally bad.

  Three Saxon mercenaries arrived, one on each side of Uther, one in front of him. None of them looked happy. None would meet Uther’s eyes.

  “My lord asked that we escort you to the villa,” the best-dressed and obviously the highest ranking of the three told the king.

  “Indeed,” Uther said, striving to look amused. “And suppose I decline to accompany you?”

  “I wouldn’t do that, sir,” the young man replied. He was gazing at a spot somewhat to the right of Uther’s left shoulder.

  Uther nodded. “Now?”

  “Now!”

  Uther nodded again, and without further comment, obeyed.

  “Did you know?” Albe asked me somewhat accusingly.

 
; “Yes,” I answered.

  “How?”

  “The Faun told me. I didn’t believe him, or rather, I couldn’t quite comprehend how it would be possible. But yes, I followed his orders.”

  Albe blinked at me. I shifted the sword on my back into a more comfortable position and strode forward boldly, even as I explained myself—or tried to.

  “He told me I must go to Arthur. But on no account could I allow myself to be captured by the King of the Summer Country, since I was one of the gates to power. I should die rather than allow myself to confer sovereignty on the wrong man. That’s your job, to kill me rather than allow me to be used in such a way. That’s why I took you with me.”

  “No!” Albe cried.

  “Yes!” I shouted even more loudly as I hurried along. “Before the sun sets tonight, you must give me your word of honor that you will take my head and return it to the rulers’ gathering place, in the north among the Picts.”

  Albe didn’t speak again.

  The strangeness of this world grew in my mind. The road along which we were walking was made of hexagonal stones, blue-gray in color, and it undulated over what I knew must have once been a coastline. In and of themselves, the stones were odd. They seemed connected. Not human-made but as though a comb from some giant beehive had been unrolled on a seashore just above the dunes.

  Those dunes were thickly overgrown with tall, feather-headed grasses, each clump of grass surrounded by low-crawling vines bearing heart-shaped leaves and a profusion of butter-yellow flowers. The blue-gray stones that comprised the road had been in place so long . . . I found I didn’t care to think about it. In places they were half-buried by rocks falling from the barren slopes above us; in others, by windblown sand. But it seemed impossible to completely cover, because whatever shape the land took, they followed it. The piles from slides were slowly shoved aside as it tilted gently to remove, then climb over, them. Where mud and sand drifted, the surface was so smooth that as the mud dried, it and the sand would be blown away by the unending wind that blew swiftly still from the deep-gullied hills that sloped down. Hills that had once been covered by the sea.