The Hallowed Isle Book Four

by Diana L. Paxson

  “They hold a quarter of Britannia,” muttered Marc’h. “My grandfather says they will try to gobble down the rest of it one day.”

  Medraut shook his head. “Not if we are strong and stand together. Not if their kings see an advantage in being our allies. I fought shoulder to shoulder with Icel’s son, Creoda, and now he calls me friend.”

  “The campaign—tell us—” came a babble of voices, and Medraut began his tale. He did not exaggerate, or at least, only a little. The men of Demetia who had ridden with him could disprove any claims that were too extravagant, after all. But he had learned among the Saxons that a man owed it to himself to claim his victories.

  “And so I have the gratitude of both the Anglians and the Northmen!” Medraut allowed himself a small smile. “There is still glory to be won without ever leaving Britannia.”

  “The lord Peretur says that the Picts are sure to start a new war soon,” said a young guardsman from Eburacum. “He says if the king does not come back soon, Britannia will be as it was in the time of the Vor-Tigernus, when the princes fought each other and left the land at the mercy of its enemies.”

  “It is true,” Medraut said thoughtfully. “We need a strong king, who will put Britannia first. . . .” He stopped, seeing a sudden doubt in some of their faces, while others nodded agreement. Had he meant to hint at rebellion? He hardly knew himself, but the seed was planted now.

  “And what if Artor does not come back? What if he and your brothers and all the experienced fighting men are killed by the Franks?” Martinus cried.

  “We still have the queen—” answered Medraut. “During these past years, will any deny that she has governed well?”

  “But she cannot lead an army—”

  “Perhaps not, though I seem to remember that the queens of our people did just that, when the Romans were conquering this land. But she does not need to. I come from the North, where they still understand that the queen is the source of sovereignty. If the high king falls, or fails, it is for Guendivar to choose a lord to lead this land.”

  VII

  BITTER HARVEST

  A.D. 514

  THE YEARLY LEVIES OF GOLD AND GRAIN WERE DUE AT THE end of summer, when the corn harvest was in. Each year since the king had departed, it seemed to Guendivar, the totals had diminished. Were the princes lying in their reports, or had Artor’s absence really drained the fertility from the land? In the North, folk held that the soil’s productivity depended on the queen. That was no help, she thought, staring at the smoke-stained plaster of the wall. How could the land be fecund when the queen was barren?

  “Do you have the tally from Dumnonia?” asked Medraut from the other side of the room.

  “Such as it is—” she answered. “According to this, there is scarcely a stalk of grain in Kernow, and hardly a fish in the sea.” She leaned from her chair to hand him the scroll.

  Putting another table in the room for him to use had made for cramped quarters, but Guendivar did not grudge it. Medraut had a sharp brain, and his mother, whatever his feelings about her might be, had trained him well. In the past year he had turned into an able assistant.

  And now he was more necessary than ever. The queen felt her eyes filling with remembered sorrow. For the past year Cai had insisted on continuing to work even when it was clear he was in pain, and just after midsummer his noble heart had given way at last. She still missed his dour, steady support, but at least Medraut was taking on some of his labor.

  “You cannot blame the Dumnonians for wishing to keep their harvest for their own use when they know that what they give us will go to support a war across the sea,” he said then.

  “Can’t they see the need?” Guendivar exclaimed.

  “To a farmer in Kernow or a sheepherd in the Lake Country, Gallia seems very far away—”

  “I’m sure the Armoricans thought the Franks were distant too,” Guendivar replied tartly, “but now they are at their gates. It does not need a Merlin to prophesy that if the Franks are not stopped in Gallia, one day the cliffs of Dubris may see their sails.”

  “But not today—” repeated Medraut, “and this day, this harvest, is what the people see. They do not understand why their king has abandoned them. They cannot share his dreams.”

  “What can I do?” She shook her head despairingly. The changes had been slow, and small, but each day the king was away from his kingdom, the web of obligation and loyalty that had held Britannia together frayed a little more. “How can I make them understand?”

  “It is Artor’s dream!” he exclaimed, rising. “Let him persuade them. It is not fair to lay this burden on you!”

  “At least this is something I can do for him,” Guendivar said sadly.

  “And this is something I can do for you . . .” Medraut replied.

  Guendivar felt a gentle touch on her shoulder, and then his strong fingers kneading, banishing the tension that knotted the muscles there. She gave an involuntary sigh, leaning into the pressure of his hands. She had not realized how tightly she had been braced against the demands of each day.

  “Is that better?” he said softly.

  “Wonderful . . . where did you learn to do this?”

  There was a silence, while he pressed the points that would release the tensions at the base of her neck.

  “My mother also was a ruling queen, although, unlike you, she lusted after power. But after a day among the accounts she too grew stiff and sore. She taught me how to massage the pain away. In the evenings I would stand behind her, as now I stand behind you, while her harper played.”

  “She taught you well”

  “Oh indeed.” His voice grew bitter. “She taught me many things . . .” For a moment his grip was almost painful. She made a stifled sound of protest and he grew gentle again.

  “What did Morgause do, to hurt you so?” Guendivar asked at last.

  “Sometimes I think her first sin was to give birth to me. But no child hates its life. She was my whole world, then.” He sighed. “And I believed that I was hers. I knew she favored me more than my brothers. She kept me always by her, directing my every step, and thought, and word. I loved her— I had no one else to love.”

  “Was that so bad? Or did she change?”

  “Change? Not until it was too late for me,” Medraut replied. “When I began to feel a man’s urges, she took me to the Picts. There were a number of boys of my age there— they showed us a beautiful girl and said she should choose as her lover the lad who did best in the games. She had amber hair like yours,” he added softly, “but she was wearing one of my mother’s gowns. I know now that it was all arranged beforehand, but at the time I thought her a princess, whom I had won in fair competition with the other boys.

  “And perhaps I would have!” he burst out then. “I was skillful and strong. I did well! But after that night, in which I discovered the joy that men find in women’s arms, she confessed that she was only a slavegirl, and that she had been told which boy to choose. She wept in my arms, my little Kea, for by then she loved me, and I believed that I loved her, too.

  “I begged my mother to buy her for me, but she said the girl was bestowed elsewhere. It was more than a year before I found out that my mother had already purchased Kea herself and ordered her strangled before we had even arrived back at Dun Eidyn.”

  “But why?” exclaimed Guendivar.

  “The reason given was that she must never open to another the womb that had received my first seed! I think that my mother saw how I loved Kea, and feared a rival. . . . But by the time I found out what had happened, Morgause no longer cared whether I loved her. She had left me and whatever plot she had meant to use me in, and run back to her own mother at the Isle of Maidens. I came south, hoping to find better treatment at the hands of my father. But he has abandoned me too, just as he abandoned you!”

  “Oh, Medraut!” she exclaimed, half turning. “I am so sorry!”

  For a moment the knowing fingers stilled. “Poor little queen . . .
so beautiful and wise. She cares for everyone else, but who will care for her?” He began to work again, stroking down along her arms, massaging the muscles of forearm and hand, especially the right, cramped from long hours with stylus and quill.

  “Such a fair white hand—it doesn’t deserve such labor—” He turned it over and began very gently to explore the coun-tours of the palm.

  Guendivar shivered. He stood very close, his arms curved around her. It seemed natural to lean against him, savoring the warm strength of the male body that supported her own.

  “It deserves . . . to be kissed—” Medraut lifted her hand and gently pressed his lips to the sensitive center of her palm.

  “Oh!” She pulled her hand away, still quivering from the jolt of energy that had passed through her body at his touch. “It tickles—” she stammered, stiffening.

  Medraut said nothing, but the strong hands drifted back up to her shoulders, gentling her like a nervous mare, and then to her neck and scalp. She relaxed once more, the dangerous moment past.

  “You spoke of a plot. What did Morgause plan? I know she did not intend your conception,” she said then.

  Again, for a moment, the clever fingers stilled. “Not my conception, but from the hour of my birth she raised me to be her puppet on Artor’s throne, because he had stolen Igierne’s love, and because she knew the princes of Britannia would never accept her as queen. Now, of course, she is the holy Lady of the Lake herself, and would never dream of disloyalty—”

  He drawled out the words with bitter irony.

  “And you?” Guendivar said softly.

  “I was brought up to serve a queen. You are my lady now. . . .” Gently he stroked her hair. She sat, half-tranced as his hands moved down to caress her cheek, turning her head as he came around to kneel beside her, and reached to kiss her lips.

  His mouth was sweet and warm. She trembled, feeling her blood leap in answer, and his hand tightened, drawing her closer. Now his lips claimed what they had only requested before. Guendivar stiffened, and he let her go.

  “I am your father’s wife . . .” she whispered.

  “But not my mother—” he said thickly. “This, at least, is not incest.”

  She straightened, taking a deep breath to slow her pulse. “Soon, Artor will return. I will keep faith with him.”

  “But what if he breaks faith with you? What if he never returns?” Medraut’s gaze held hers.

  “He will come back!” she said desperately. “Help me, Medraut, I need you. But between us there can be nothing more.”

  Medraut sat back on his heels, his expression relaxing to its usual look of irony. “Lady, I will remember. . . .”

  The queen turned back to her papers, though she did not see them, knowing that she would remember as well.

  When the first chill winds of fall plucked leaves from the trees and gleaned the stubbled fields, the princes of Britannia went hunting. It had become Guendivar’s custom, in the years of Artor’s absence, to progress through the kingdom during the time between harvest and midwinter, allowing her household to enjoy the sport, renewing acquaintance with the chieftains, and collecting any taxes that were still in arrears. This year it was Dumnonia whose contribution was still lacking, and so it was that at the Turning of Autumn the royal household found itself at Caellwic, an old hillfort south of Din Tagell that Constantine used as a hunting lodge.

  The stags were in rut already. The woodland rang with their bellowing. Men stopped when they heard that harsh music, listening, and Medraut recognized the excitement that pulsed in his own veins in the glitter of other men’s eyes.

  “Go—” said Constantine, who was prevented by a twisted knee from riding. “It is clear that until you have had your sport no one will have any patience for sitting in council. I only wish I could go with you!”

  They set out early the next morning, guided by a little dark fellow called Cuby who reminded Medraut of the hidden people of the northern hills. Several of the riders had brought dogs with them, lean grey sight-hounds that strained at their tethers and curly-haired brachets that could follow a blood trail all the way to Annuen.

  “A stag—you get now, while still has flesh—” The little man laughed softly. “Wears self to bone, rutting and fighting. This time o’year, thinks with his balls!”

  “Like you, Ebi—” said Martinus of Viroconium to one of his friends.

  The young man in question flushed. He had acquired a reputation second only to Gualchmai’s for affairs with women, and since the latter’s marriage, might even have surpassed him.

  “And why not?” said someone else in a lower tone. “We must prove our manhood in bed if we are not allowed to do so in war!”

  Medraut smiled without speaking, paying more attention to the tone than the words. The men who had come out with him were mostly of his own generation, sons of chieftains, or of men who had gone with Artor over the sea. He watched how they rode and handled their weapons, considering which of them he might want to add to the guard with which he had garrisoned Camalot.

  They came down off the high moorland into a wooded valley and their guide held up a hand for silence. Medraut leaned back, gripping hard with his knees as his mount slid down the bank. Somewhere ahead he could hear the gurgle of a stream. His pony threw up its head, snorting, and he reined in hard as half a dozen dark heads popped up from among the hazels. They spoke to Cuby in a soft gabble, and the guide turned back to the riders with a grin.

  “They say there is fine deer in meadow downstream. You go carefully, bows ready, and they drive him.”

  One of the dogs whined and was hushed. The hounds pulled at their leashes, quivering, knowing that soon they would be freed to run.

  “Very well,” said Medraut. He turned to the other riders. “Mark your targets as you will, but the king stag belongs to me!”

  He kicked his mount into the lead. They moved off through the autumn woods, dappled with the golden shadows of the turning leaves. The riders, wrapped in hunting mantles chequered in the earth tones of natural wool, seemed to blend into the branches. Fallen foliage deadened the horses’ footfalls; only a soft rustle accompanied their progress, with the squeak of saddle leather and the occasional chink of steel.

  There was a tense moment when Martinus reined his mount in hard and it squealed. Medraut rounded on him, frowning, and Martinus pointed to the black-and-white ripple of an adder winding away among the leaves. Martinus was notorious for his fear of serpents; hopefully they would not encounter another. Medraut sighed, and motioned him to move on.

  Presently the trees began to thin. Beyond them he glimpsed the meadow, and the red-brown shapes of deer. He reined back and lifted a hand to alert the others, then loosened his rein. His mount took a few steps forward, paused to snatch a mouthful of greenery, then moved on. Through the veil of leaves he saw one of the deer lift its head, ears swiveling, and then, sensing only the random movements of grazing quadrupeds, return to its own meal.

  Slowly the hunting party moved through the wood, men peeling off at Medraut’s signal to tie their mounts to trees and ready their bows. They could see the deer clearly now, grazing at the other end of the meadow— seven soft-eyed does and the stag who was courting them, his flanks a little ragged, but his head upheld proudly beneath its antler crown. The old king of the forest he was, a stag of twelve tines who had survived many battles and begotten many fawns.

  Ho, old man, thought Medraut, you are looking for the young stag who will try to steal your does. But the creature that comes against you now will take not only your females but land and life itself! Beware!

  The does were grazing, but the stag stood with head up, nostrils flaring as he tested the wind. He was clearly uneasy, but the random movements of the horses had deceived him, and the scent he was seeking was that of his own kind. Medraut saw the edge of the wood before him and reined his own mount in. Moving slowly, he slid from the saddle, Using the body of the horse to hide his own from view. With equal care he unslun
g his bow and nocked an arrow.

  A two-legged shape flickered in and out of view at the other end of the meadow. Among the deer, heads jerked up. They began to move, alerted, but not yet alarmed.

  Come here, my king . . . thought Medraut, this way. Your life belongs to me!

  Again the half-seen movement. Now the wind must be bringing scent as well, for a doe jumped to one side. The others stiffened and the stag’s heavy head swung round. In another moment they would flee. Medraut lifted the bow, his own muscles quivering with strain.

  Off to his left someone sneezed. The deer exploded into motion. Medraut, his gaze fixed on the stag, turned as it leaped forward, awareness narrowing to the gleam of red hide. He felt the arrow thrum from between his fingers, saw it sink into the shining flank, then the stag flashed past him and crashed off through the trees.

  He jerked the rein free and flung himself onto his horse’s back. A grey shape hurtled past him, barking excitedly. From behind him, hunting horns sounded the chase in bitter harmony. Medraut dug his heels into the pony’s sides and sent it after, lips peeled back in a feral grin.

  The minutes that followed were a confusion of thrashing leaves and whipping branches. His shot had been a good one, but the stag was strong, and by the time blood loss began to slow him he was halfway down the valley.

  Medraut heard a furious yammering of dogs and slapped his pony’s neck with the reins. Through the trees he saw a plunging shape, red and brown as it passed through sunlight and shade. Five hounds had brought the stag to bay against an outcropping of stone. As Medraut pulled up, he heard hoofbeats behind him and saw Martinus on a lathered mount.

  “Over there—” he shouted. “Keep the dogs to their work!”

  Martinus nodded and urged his horse forward, sounding the death on his horn and encouraging the hounds with yips and cries. Medraut had dismounted and tied his own mount, and was working his way around the side, pulling the short hunting sword from its sheath. He heard other riders arriving, but none would dispute his claim. He eased around the tumbled rocks, calculating his approach.