Call of the Kings

by Chris Page

  Rawnie’s death had taken something away from him that would never be replaced and had left a great sadness in him. Despite all the violence of his life with hardly a week going by without an engagement with someone or other who wanted to dominate some part or other of Wessex, usually of Viking extraction, Rawnie had died peacefully in her sleep. Following the death of Desmond Kingdom Biwater by Freyja’s hand at Uffington, Rawnie had managed to take on the role she had always said she wasn’t cut out for. So besides being his beautiful wife and a princess, mother to their two children and all-consuming lover, she also took on the role of venefical companion. By his side always with practical, no-nonsense advice and support, she had become the perfect accomplice.

  As Twilight approached his sixty-eighth year he began to slip into a deep, lonely void that had so far been impossible to fill since Rawnie’s death, especially during the long, dark nights. There had been many times when Twilight had wished he were able to sleep like ordinary mortals because that would have at least given him some respite from his loneliness. Instead he’d withdrawn more and more into the literature of the scriptorium left to him by Merlin, within which he had found great solace. And, of course, he was always in the vicinity of his guardians and other great love.

  The bright, vivacious, and ever energetic pica. His daily communications with them were, as with everything else, time-driven, and the chattering cackles he received on his shoulder were now conducted by the great grandchildren of his former companions, Bell, Horn, Rho, Ceeba, and the others who had so faithfully served him back in the early days of his Wessex venefical stewardship.

  Avalon still functioned as a leprosia, run nowadays by his remaining younger sister Meg, who was herself getting old. Guinevere had lived to a venefical-like one hundred years of age before finally, regally, succumbing to death’s embrace. Twilight had buried her in a casket alongside that of her great love, Arthur, in the hidden cave on Avalon, a dark and secretive space they shared with another great legendary casket containing the chalice known as the Holy Grail.

  Wessex and the bardic runes and enchantment-driven crinkum crankum of its existence had become jaded and needed a boost. The continual fighting against the Viking invaders had taken its toll and they were weary of wars. The Celtic tribe are essentially peace-lovers, and although they do not lack courage and will fight as hard as anyone when they have to, waging an almost continual war for fifty years against the brutal savagery of the Norse invader and others picking over the weaknesses left by their raids went against everything their culture stood for.

  In order to fight the invader, the Celtic artistic and spiritual indulgences had been put aside in favour of weaponry and battle strategies. The relaxed and gentle times - spent in idolatry, poetry, music, the shaping of cruciform-based objects, jewellery, and luck pieces in gold, silver, rock, wood, iron, leather, and any other material that took their fancy - had been ignored for too long. It was time to get back to the basic husbandry of their land and idolatry of their forefathers before whole generations lost forever the beliefs and skills such pastimes and gentle playthings offered. It was time to live like Celts again. To get back to their deities; to Nuada, the Goddess of the Sun, Diancecht, medicine, Amaethon, light, Dylan, darkness, and Keridwen, poetry. They would happily forsake Manawydan, their god of war, for the foreseeable future. They were sick of war; it was a never-ending cycle that didn’t seem to achieve anything but death and suffering.

  The great stones of venefical destiny still towered above everyone at Avebury, and Twilight still officiated at the annual Equinoctial Festival of the Cowering Dead at Stonehenge. The next one would be his fifty-sixth, but there was bound to be a certain amount of inertia and apathy after such a long time. The mighty Merlin himself had retired into his literature for fifty years following his row with, and the subsequent death of, King Arthur until the worry of finding and training the next in line became so paramount that he had to shake himself into action before the sands of time began to run out.

  And now, here at last, hope had sprung eternal in the shape of a redheaded, green-eyed slip of a girl with freckles from Ireland. The veil of the past was beginning to lift, and the future hopes of Wessex could once again burn bright.

  And all Twilight had to do was train her properly.

  He had decided to delay the appointment of Tara’s animals. She seemed to have an affinity with all of them and would often be found sitting outside the compound festooned with all sorts of bird varieties, with fox, deer, badger, bear, stout, dog, weasel, wolf, and other very wild animals that were normally part of one another’s food chain and sworn enemies - sitting in harmonious peace at her feet. Although unlikely, Twilight hadn’t completely discounted the fact that Tara could have any number of them in liegemen to her, a fantastic situation that even extended to fish in the water. Every time they walked along a river, schools of different species would track them along the bank, fighting, jumping, and wriggling to get close to her.

  With thirty-one years left until his one hundred years were up, he had plenty of time. The seven short years he had with the long magus was not enough time to learn all that was required, and subsequent mistakes had showed it. Even though this young lady was exceptional, twenty years was around the correct time for learning.

  And as Merlin always said, qui docet discit, he who teaches, learns.

  ‘Now I know more about what I’m doing, can I go back to the hamlet in Ireland where I was born and put matters right?’

  Tara, Katre, and Twilight were again walking around the mighty stones of destiny at Avebury. It had been six months since their first meeting and Tara had shown herself to be a willing and receptive pupil. They stopped at the Presidium stone of the Pale Sybil, the last female venefica of Wessex to be buried here, and Tara had developed a particular bond with her venefical history.

  ‘What would you do?’ Twilight asked.

  ‘Stop them throwing anyone who doesn’t share their views off the high cliffs into the Devil’s Pit.’

  ‘As they were about to do with you,’ Katre said quietly.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Twilight, stroking his chin. ‘It would be as good a place as any to start with your first actual engagement, although it’s not exactly Wessex.’

  ‘Eventually,’ said Tara with a toss of her red curls, ‘the horizons controlling the venefical gift must be expanded so we might as well start at our former home settlement.’

  ‘As long as it remains our former home,’ said Katre. ‘I have no wish to live there again. The memories are too bitter. Besides, I like it here in Wessex.’

  ‘We stay just as long as it takes,’ Tara said. ‘Like you, Ma, I have no wish to stay there a moment longer than necessary.’

  ‘The world we live in is full of communities destroying those who hold different beliefs. Trying to put it right on a worldwide basis is an all-consuming lifetime’s work, which would have to be conducted at the expense of the one region we’re supposed to concentrate upon and protect. In this case Wessex. Whilst I agree that our venefical horizons must expand, certainly within the confines of Britain, there is danger in expanding too far afield. Let’s not forget that there are probably, nay definitely, other venefici out there who might not like us suddenly appearing on their land, waving our enchantments about in the name of righting local injustices. That’s what happened here with Elelendise, the wolf woman. She suddenly turned up with the declaration that she would be the venefica of Wessex in place of Merlin. As you know, he took great exception to her presence, and the legendary battle between them began. So, the first thing we should do is check to see if there is a resident astounder around.’

  Tara leaned against the Presidium stone as she considered the old wizard’s words.

  ‘D’you think there are venefici in Ireland, specifically in the area where we came from?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Twilight smiled. ‘And it could be argued that if there is such a person in your former area, they should have put right the i
njustices at the Devil’s Pit anyway. There is only one way to find out.’

  ‘When are we going?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ he said. ‘Hold my hands.’

  The three of them spent a couple of days inquiring around the settlements of the West of Ireland for news of any venefical presence. In Cork, the port where Katre and Tara had embarked on the Celtic Lady for Bristol, they received suspicious looks from a number of inhabitants when they asked the question about anyone with special powers of sorcery or magic. Clonmel was the same and in Limerick they were directed to a dirty old hermit who lived in a small cave outside the town. Apart from having no aura or skills in the enchantments, the old hermit was also spittle-spraying, screamingly, and utterly mad. In Tralee they asked a local monk, who made the sign of the cross at them and scuttled away casting fearful glances over his shoulder, and Killarney folk just smiled knowingly and nodded but didn’t offer any further information. They concluded that this part of Ireland didn’t have a veneficus unless it was someone who didn’t practice or maintained a very low profile due to the hatred of any form of heresy.

  ‘There is our old hamlet. It’s called Skellighaven,’ said Katre later from high in the clouds over the small clutch of hovels in the trees near the coast. ‘Named after those two islands out there called the Skelligs.’ She pointed to two shadowy blue islands rising from the sea about eight miles offshore. ‘The big one is called Skellig Michael and the other one the Small Skellig.’ Her finger followed the rocky coastline. ‘And over there is Jonnie Jump’s old hovel, where we lived for the last six months we were here.’ All that remained of the old place by the side of the evil-smelling bog where Jonnie had taken his final whoop and jump were blackened stumps. It had been burned to the ground, probably because Katre and Tara had lived there.

  ‘And this must be the infamous Devil’s Pit,’ said Twilight as they moved over a steep bay with the waves pounding and smashing far below into the jagged rocks, throwing spray high into the air with the force of the collision. Just off the shore the treacherous currents coiled and whorled like whirlpools, drawing sand, shells, and broken rocks out into the Atlantic with its strong tidal undertows.

  Tara pointed to the hill overlooking the hamlet. The monastery stood out gray against the mid-morning sun. There was a small crowd gathered outside the monastery entrance.

  ‘Something’s going on,’ said Twilight. ‘Let’s see what it is.’

  Staying invisible, Twilight took them to a point in the air over the crowd.

  Standing on a wooden box so he could be seen and heard, and flanked by several of his monks, the abbot was addressing about fifty locals. Seeing the abbot forced an involuntary shudder from Tara whilst Katre pointed out her mother and former husband, his bald head covered by a big, floppy hat. The abbot kept the hand with no fingers pushed firmly up the baggy sleeve of his brown cloak. With his other hand he held up a small brown book.

  ‘And so I say to you that both Patrick Delaney and his wife, Nell, are heretics,’ the abbot intoned. ‘They have been caught worshipping pagan images that are against the teachings of our Blessed Saint Columba and whose word of God we adhere to here. There is only one punishment for such deeds, good people, and that is . . .’

  He placed the hand with the book to his ear. ‘The Devil’s Pit for ‘em,’ Kate’s mother screeched loudly. That set others off. Most vociferous among them was her former husband.

  Soon everyone in the party was shouting for Patrick Delaney and his wife to be cast into the infamous Devil’s Pit. The abbot used his good hand to hold the book up for silence. ‘So be it. The good people of Skellighaven have spoken.’ He turned to his monks. ‘They are both locked up securely in the monastery?’ ‘They are, Holy Father,’ four monks replied together. Turning back to the crowd the abbot beamed at them. ‘They shall be cast into the Pit at daybreak tomorrow morning. We would appreciate some volunteers to help us with the task.’ Once again Kate’s mother and her former husband eagerly pushed themselves forward to assist with the gruesome task.

  ‘May God bless you all for your strength and fortitude. We will meet here at first light.’ The abbot smiled beatifically at all of them, stepped down from the wooden box, and with his monks falling in behind him walked slowly back into the monastery with his head bowed.

  Later, back at the Avebury compound Katre spoke scathingly.

  ‘It’s nice to know that nothing changes and the same old treacherous deeds are still going on. There’s a hidden story here that I can shed a little light on. I’ve known Patrick Delaney and his wife, Nell, all my life. They’re good people and wouldn’t know a pagan image if it jumped up and bit them. Somebody, and I have a pretty good idea who, has planted such an image in their hovel and told that evil abbot and his nasty monks about it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My mother and that rat’s dropping of a former husband of mine.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Patrick and Nell have a nice big hovel and some good, well-watered land down by the river where they keep a big herd of breeding cattle. It was left to them by her father, who worked hard all his life to build it up to what it is today. They also have a nice copse of willow for weaving and a deep, clean water well. They’re after that, and with the evil abbot on their side they’ll get it.’

  Twilight looked at Tara and nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Oh no, they won’t,’ she said forcefully. ‘I remember Mister Delaney and Nell - they were always very kind to me and let me talk to their animals and roam around their land whenever I wanted to. That grandma and father of mine are evil people who I’ve punished before, obviously not enough for them to take notice. If anybody deserves to go into the Pit it’s them and that evil abbot.’

  Twilight chuckled.

  ‘We’ll see what happens in the morning then, shall we?’

  As daylight broke over the crashing waves of the Devil’s Pit the following morning, Katre, Tara, and Twilight once again arrived over the scene. Below them the villagers of Skellighaven, Kate’s mother and former husband prominent among them, struggled with Patrick and Nell Delaney. With their hands tied behind their backs and ropes looped around their necks, the doomed husband and wife were being dragged and kicked along the cliff path toward the highest point of the bay. Walking in front of them with his head bowed over his book as he chanted for the salvation of the pair was the abbot and four monks. His hooded cowl was back from his head and he shook his monk’s fringe with a great display of ardent fervour as he chanted. His words and those of the accompanying monk’s replies were whipped away on the strong, early morning breezes that came off the angry sea.

  Almost unconscious with grief and bewilderment at what was happening to them, Nell Delaney was being carried by an assortment of villagers, whilst her husband, who was being dragged along at the front, struggled to look back and offer some words of comfort to her. The monks arrived at the casting place followed by the struggling, carrying group. Marked by a small circle of stones, one of which the still chanting abbot mounted with his back to the sea, the group pushed Patrick to the front and carried Nell and removed the thick ropes around their necks. As Patrick Delaney and his screaming wife stared down into the jagged rocks being pounded by angry waves seven hundred feet below them, the chanting abbot suddenly stopped, turned, and pointed out toward the purple Skelligs on the horizon.

  And Patrick and Nell Delaney were hurled out into the air by many hands to an innocent oblivion.

  Except they didn’t go anywhere.

  Remaining fixed in the air, limbs and eyes frozen in the sheer terror of the moment, their simple linen tunics pressed back against their spread-eagled bodies by the force of the throw, they looked back at their would-be killers, whose outstretched hands and snarling faces declared their part.

  For they, too, were frozen in the act.

  For a moment nothing moved.

  Then Tara appeared in the air alongside Nell and Patrick and taking their hands eased them bac
k to the top of the cliff away from the fifty frozen monks and villagers.

  ‘Stay there and comfort each other,’ she said softly to Patrick and Nell. ‘Everything is alright now.’

  As the two Delaneys sobbed and clung to each other, Tara walked back to the group that was still frozen at the instant of throwing. She looked into their eyes. The first one she came to was the abbot. With his good hand holding the book high, his pale, watery pupils looked out at the point where the Delaneys had been thrown with a zealous satisfaction that he was the leader in this execution of heretics. Tara raised her hands up and moved them out over the edge and stopped. The abbot was instantly transformed to the spot previously occupied by his victims. Then she moved to her father. Still with his arms outstretched in the act of the throw, with his blue-green eyes showing a snarling hatred, she moved him out over the edge alongside the abbot. Finally she approached her grandmother, one arm raised in an act of triumph, her brown eyes glittering with the greed of what she would now gain from the death of the Delaneys. She, too, was placed out high above the crashing waves.

  Katre and Twilight appeared on the cliff with Tara, who waved her hand to return the power of hearing and speech to the three left suspended over the seven-hundred-foot drop.