by Smith, JD
‘I bring Rufus to his father,’ I say, gesturing the cart with a tilt of my head.
As we cover the short distance to our fort beside the sea, I explain how Rufus died.
‘He wasn’t ready,’ Eurig says. ‘I always said Mark was wrong to let him go east.’
‘Would he ever have been ready?’ As I speak, I know the answer. It was his fate to die young, I see that now. He was like my brother and yet I know he would never have taken the title of king and made it his own. Would never have commanded men the way his father does, or earned the respect needed to fire courage in battle.
Eurig shrugs. ‘Possibly not.’
‘What of home? Is all well?’
‘Mark is troubled,’ Eurig replies, walking beside me. ‘No one is safe from his temper. Your mother has refused to speak to him since he sent you and Rufus east, and it will only be worse once she discovers he is dead.’
‘She makes a lot of noise, but she means well.’
Eurig nods. ‘The Irish king is dead, too, and the man they call Morholt has taken command of the southern tribes.’
‘Morholt? I have heard that name.’
‘He leads the raiding parties further up the coast on those who refuse to pay tribute. And those who did pay tribute but were too ill-equipped to defend themselves.’ He scours the landscape and grimaces. ‘A man without morals.’
‘Morholt no longer accepts our tribute?’ I ask.
‘He would accept a tribute. He demanded a tribute. Only Mark refuses to pay it.’
‘He does? Why?’
Eurig pats his horse as we pause beside a stream to let the beasts drink.
‘Because Mark does not believe Morholt will honour any arrangement between their people and ours, that the agreement was between the old king and him,’ he says with indifference. ‘And because Morholt trebled the tribute.’
I laugh at this. The rain is soaking through to my skin, I have much weighted on my mind, and still the outrageous demand tickles me.
‘Get greedy and you get nothing.’ Eurig gives a smile containing much mischief.
My laughter subsides. ‘Except Mark has started a war with the Irish.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘They do not come?’ I wave our line onward. Perhaps half a mile before we reach our beds.
‘No sighting yet.’
‘They will. And Mark will be ready. He would make no stand if he did not have the men to resist them.’
Eurig bares his teeth and whistles. I hear a call back and realise we are closer than I thought.
‘You are jumpy,’ Eurig says.
‘I have to tell Mark his son is dead.’
‘True, but it wasn’t your fault.’
‘No? I was with him. I could have done more.’
Eurig turns a hard eye on me. ‘You never speak with regret, Tristan. Do not begin now. That way lays the path to becoming a milksop.’
I feel myself grow hot. Angry at myself. That a man such as Eurig should see me weak.
‘You are right,’ I say, although I am not convinced.
‘Mark will be angry, no doubt, and he might well blame you, but he will forgive you in time.’
We reach the fort at Tintagel on the north coast. Waves erode the sodden land. The wind is strong and I can barely see as we make the last stretch in darkness. Torches cast shadows long as the cart rumbles along before me.
The fort is an old Roman construction, deserted more than a hundred years. Mark has taken great care to keep the fortifications in good repair. As we are greeted by the lookout, I notice it continues to be well manned in the evening hours.
Eurig calls to several men and the cart, along with Rufus’ body, is swallowed into the fort’s belly and the gates close protectively behind us.
‘Mark will be in the hall,’ he says, turning to me.
We step from the darkness into warmth. Men turn to see who has entered. As they realise it is Tristan, nephew of the king, returned from the east and the Saxon frontier, whispers commence and soon silence ends the jovial feasting.
At the farthest end of the hall, thin furs hanging upon a lean frame, Mark stands. As always, there is no circlet upon his head. He wears no warrior bands even though he has earned many. Mild curiosity lifts his features.
‘Tristan, you are returned to us? You bring news?’
Eurig strides ahead of me as I close the gap between myself and Mark, and his face turns from one of enquiry to urgent concern, his mouth taut. He inclines his head as Eurig murmurs in his ear, nods, and beckons for us to follow him.
We move to a doorway at the back of the hall.
I can stand in a shield wall, smell the blood of a thousand dead men, feel the blade of an enemy sword twitch across my flesh, yet I struggle to find the heart to tell a man — this man — that his son is dead.
We enter a room with a table at its centre. Not a feasting table, for these are council chambers. This is the place where the men of all the kingdoms of Briton once sat to discuss the invasion of our lands. Now the room is bare and still save the three of us.
Mark walks to the far side of the table and leans with both hands on its surface. His face is weary. He looks to have lived several years in as many months.
‘Eurig tells me that your news is better told in private, Tristan. I take it the Saxons—’
‘Rufus is dead, my Lord,’ I say before he has finished. I can contain the news no longer.
Mark makes no movement. Says nothing. His eyes are dead for a moment, then life flickers back into them and he says: ‘Leave us, Eurig.’
‘My Lord.’ Eurig exits the room without a glance to either of us. He would rather not be here for the king’s next words. I hear the merriment of the court and then the door snaps closed and it ceases.
‘My son is dead?’ Mark asks, another year drawing on his face.
‘A Saxon blade. A poisoned Saxon blade,’ I add bitterly.
Mark pulls himself up to his full, dominating height and clasps his hands behind his back. ‘Were you with him?’
‘In battle and at the end.’
Mark nods calmly, as if it is all perfectly understandable — a piece of knowledge from foreign lands, cast before him as a merchant might hint of useless news.
‘That is something, at least.’
‘It was a scratch.’ I am trying to justify what has passed, knowing it should never have come to this. ‘I looked at it myself. A clean scratch.’
He moves around the table toward me. Places a firm hand on my shoulder. ‘Sometimes, that is all it takes.’ His hand slips away and he turns from me.
‘Uncle?’
I see his shoulders tense beneath thin furs. Then he lashes out at a chair beside him. It clatters across the floor and his face is contorted in a spasm of pain and anger.
I say nothing. Just stand and watch as Mark stares blankly at the table. What is there to say to a man who has lost his son? I feel his grief. I want to make it dissipate, but I have done more harm than good. I reassured Rufus over and over that confrontations with the Saxons would be like training with wooden swords on a muddy patch of earth, where the worst injury would be to his pride. It was never like that. In my assurance, had I made him complacent?
Finally, Mark walks from the room. I am sure tears glisten in his eyes but he shows no further emotion.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask.
Mark pauses. Looks at me with a questioning stare.
‘With Rufus’ body?’ I say. ‘What would you have me do with his body?’
A ghost passes across his face. ‘You brought him to Tintagel?’
I nod, confused at his question. ‘I brought him home.’
In the great hall the feast continues. I sit beside Mark as he dismisses all food and drink with a wave of his hand. The people know nothing yet of Rufus’ death, and Mark seems in no mind to break it to them. Eurig catches my eye. I give a small shrug back, to suggest I know not what Mark is thinking. Rufus’ body has been moved
to one of the smaller halls not in use.
‘When will you tell them?’
Mark does not stir or acknowledge my words. As I give up hope of answer, he says: ‘We have more important things to consider at the moment, Tristan.’
‘What is more important?’
He lets out a frustrated breath. ‘I cannot stay in here. Come and walk with me. The night is damp but quite calm.’
Curious stares follow the king as he rises. Mark takes no notice as we slip from the hall, through the council chambers and passageways I know so well from my childhood. Guards open the door. We step out to face a wall of freezing air. Calm and damp, I think, and bloody cold.
Mark strolls ahead across the wet grass, heading toward the outer wall of the fort. I take a few running steps to keep up as he springs lithely up the steps to see out across the lands. I follow his solid pace around the rampart in silence, to where the wind draws in off the Irish Sea, pulling salt and spray with it.
‘The Irish king is dead,’ Mark says, gazing out. ‘I presume Eurig has already told you of this?’
‘He did.’
‘Then you will know too that Lord Morholt has risen to take command in his place?’
‘Eurig said he demanded a tribute thrice the size of the one we were paying,’ I say. ‘And that you refused him.’
Mark rests his chin on his chest for a moment. His grey hair shines in the dark. He is old, much older than I had noticed before. He lifts his head and looks at me.
‘Morholt will never leave us in peace. He will raid our coast, send his Bloodshields across from his foreign land and crush us between the Saxons and himself.’
‘Do the other Irish tribes stand with him?’
‘Oswyn has taken a small boat and heads to the north of Ireland in an attempt to open talks with them. It may be that the northern kings do not approve of this new lord taking lands which were once ruled by one of their own blood.’
‘You think Oswyn will be able to open communication with them?’
Mark’s smile is almost sympathetic. ‘He is a charming young warrior, Tristan. If they are persuadable, he will have no problem on that count.’
The reprimand for my dislike of Oswyn is mild. It is also accurate. Oswyn will be more than capable of persuading the northern Irish to speak with us. Damn him, I think.
‘What do we do until we hear from Oswyn?’
‘I thought on it much, and made my offer to Morholt.’
There is something in Mark’s tone. A resolution I have heard many times before when decisive action must be taken.
He will not be persuaded to change his mind now.
Chapter 12
Iseult
There is a sense of relief the morning Morholt departs Ireland, but also the dread of his return as thirty men stride from the halls and across the fields to the shore where one of our many boats waits to be loaded. Our women and children follow, carrying supplies and shouting luck to them, that they come back with the riches rightfully ours. Yet they are not ours. They are the Briton’s treasures they try to take; their food and their gold and their livestock.
I wonder sometimes about those Britons, and whether they deserve such plunder. Our warriors tell us they are savages, that they are much like the invaders who take their lands, that their blood is no longer pure but mixed with the barbarian animals of places far away.
There was a man, once. A traveller from Mercia who talked and talked around our fires until he knew everything there was to know of our people. He was older and cleverer than many men, but you would not have known it. He played his innocence well, pretending with wide-eyed looks and naïve questions to be ignorant of our ways and our customs, and yet the tricks he played with his nimble fingers would have us curious night after night. He would have been killed, but he told such wonderful stories about distant countries of which we had never heard that he was allowed to stay a while before he moved on and told others of his adventures.
I wonder now of the men Morholt will kill to obtain the treasures and power he seeks. Will they be men like the Mercian, clever tricksters and storytellers? He had not seemed like a savage to me. Or maybe our warriors are right, and they face wild men across the waters on the large island. Their lands are raided by us and invaded by others. But how would untamed savages have so much gold and silver and bronze? How could they live under Roman rule for centuries and not know civilised ways?
I sit on a flat stone with my chin resting on my knees, Acha beside me, watching the departure. My fear has faded somewhat, knowing I will be able to sleep easy for a short time. I am being given another chance, I think, for the lords across the sea to destroy Morholt, to kill him, so that he might never return to us and take me for his own. How much I cling to that hope and how many moments I imagine the boats grinding onto our shore, and the men walking up the sandbanks to tell us that our leader comes home wrapped in linen, ready to be burnt as we chant prayers to carry him to heaven.
‘Your mother approaches,’ Acha says, tapping my shoulder.
To my left, Iseult the Elder, my mother, is followed by two servants carrying a chest between them. They are weary, slipping, sliding, struggling. Sudden dread wraps itself around me as I see the chest is my own.
‘You are to accompany Morholt,’ my mother says. ‘I have clothes packed for you.’
I look to the ship being loaded with weapons and food and fresh water.
‘To Briton?’
She nods. ‘Acha is to go with you.’
I look to Acha whose smile is sympathetic and also fearful. She does not wish to go either.
My mother walks, servants trailing behind her, down to the boat as we dutifully follow. Morholt shouts to his men and makes my step falter, and it is Acha who links my arm with hers. Mother beckons me onward with a curt look. The sea is heavy and grey, and clouds overhead obliterate the already weakening sun. The waters that were once a comfort to me as I watched the waves skitter back and forth day after day are a comfort no longer. The deep expanse will be my captor until I return home.
Chapter 13
Tristan
I feel isolated, the darkness out to sea endless. Feasting, merriment, and Rufus lying in the fort below us forgotten for now. Mark makes no attempt to explain his decision. It is for me to press further.
‘What offer did you make him?’
‘Morholt will fight our greatest warrior. If he wins, he takes the tribute. He loses, he forfeits the tribute and leaves.’
‘Morholt is not afraid of us. What makes you believe he will fight, one man against another?’
‘You have not met him, Tristan?’
‘No.’
‘He is an arrogant man who also needs to prove himself a leader of men. They follow him now, but he will require their unwavering support to maintain a grip on his newfound kingdom.’
‘And if we kill him, what difference will it make?’
I rest my hands on the railing which separates the platform from a thirty foot drop. The wood beneath my fingers feels familiar, welcoming, despite the cold and gloom. Mark beside me. Talk of defending our lands and fighting the Irish. Home. Only now Rufus does not stand talking with us. And so I want reassurance before I commit my view on Mark’s offer.
‘It might not make a difference,’ he says. ‘There is always another to rise in a lord’s place. That is the way of things. With luck we will find ourselves in a position to make a treaty with the northern Irish kingdoms, and that could give us a good few years of peace. Then we will be able to concentrate on the Saxon front and provide Dumnonia with the support it needs.’
The mention of Dumnonia, and the last support sent — Rufus and me — brings sickness to my throat.
‘Peace with the Irish will not come,’ I say.
‘No, perhaps not peace, but some form of arrangement can be negotiated.’ Mark fixes his eyes upon me. There is a sadness, a weakness in them I could almost pity. ‘Time is running faster than me now. I remember sitting in counc
il with all the kings of Briton. We attempted to unite ourselves against the Saxons and make a stand against the Irish. We failed in both because the kingdoms could not agree what should be done. They fought over the position of High King, and when that could not be decided upon they argued further on who would therefore lead us, how many spears each lord would provide, how much coin should be given to hire additional spears, who would provide the army with food ... what was fair. Is anything fairer now? We still squabble and bicker. We do not work together. It was fourteen years ago, Tristan. I can still feel the anger and frustration in the room after weeks of talk … the anger of men who knew we had to come to a decision, to work as one united Briton.’ He shakes his head as if he should not have spoken of such matters. ‘If I do not try to solidify our position now, ensure our resources are well distributed, what manner of a king does that make me?’
‘We should try,’ I confirm, once more feeling his reprimand. Ashamed of my doubt. Realising that he does not speak of, or make reference to Rufus. And what will happen now there is no heir to Kernow, even though as he says, time is running faster than him?
‘Indeed we should.’
Silence.
‘Do you think it will be possible?’ I ask.
‘To make some form of peace?’
‘To fight Morholt, just one blade against another, and win?’
Mark claps a hand on my shoulder twice. ‘I have confidence,’ he says, and turns.
Looking at Mark as he walks away I wonder whether he made the decision to challenge Morholt before or after I told him of Rufus. It does not make a difference; Mark is right as ever. This will be the quickest and cleanest way to resolve the agreement that once held between Morholt’s people and ours. This way only my life is staked and not an army of men. Mark knows this. He will also know he gives me opportunity to regain his friendship and respect. To make amends.