Call of the Kings

by Chris Page

  Twilight’s answer was specific and to the point.

  No.

  As the court chaos began to slide into anarchy, something happened that put an entirely different perspective on matters.

  Under the command of Harold, the eldest of the three Godwines, the three brothers sailed a large, mainly Viking-crewed fleet around the coast, recruiting soldiers as they went until they had enough to challenge Edward’s rule.

  Which they did by sailing up the Thames and anchoring within sight of the king’s newly built palace.

  Quickly gaining the support of Londoners who, by now, believed that anyone was preferable to the Norman-loving Edward, Harold, Beorn, and Swein Godwine challenged Edward to a fight for the throne.

  Again, the king sent a messenger to Twilight for assistance with specific mention that the throne of England was, once more, under threat from Viking raiders.

  As Tara said when the old enchanter first received the king’s messenger at the Avebury compound,

  ‘After what they did to my beloved mother, I would grab my dogs and go now, regardless of how many men they have. The invaders also include that wretch Swein, who you banished from this land. He doesn’t think you’re capable of following up the threat; otherwise he wouldn’t have come back.’

  Twilight smiled at his belligerent little warmongering tyro. She was getting over the death of her mother, casting off the listless, maudlin state she’d been in for the past weeks, and gradually beginning to take an interest in other matters. Perhaps a good, brutal spate of warfare against the Viking was the final thing to get her back to normal. Besides, with her first visit to the Equinoctial Festival of the Dead approaching, her mental state needed to be perfect in order to take part. Twilight remembered his own initiation into the annual ceremony alongside Merlin when he’d passed out completely. Although his collapse had been due to the deep bass voice presence of Tiresias, the Seer of Thebes, the whole ordeal required a soundness of all functioning faculties, including his own.

  ‘I take it from your comment that you’re in favour of joining the court of Edward?’

  ‘I most certainly am, although I do not want to be called a Junior Ambassador.’

  ‘What would you like to be called?’

  ‘Tara will do . . . for now.’

  ‘So much for keeping away from the royal battle prerogative.’ Twilight sighed. He turned to the king’s messenger, who was waiting anxiously by his horse.

  ‘How long did it take you to get here?’

  ‘A day and a half.’

  The old astounder’s black eyes gleamed. ‘By the time you get back to the king we would have been there for a day and a half. But nonetheless, the answer is yes, so take your time. We’ll tell him ourselves in a couple of minutes.’

  Edward could not hide the huge sigh of relief that puffed out his cheeks when Twilight and Tara appeared, completely unannounced, by his side as he paced frantically around the palace gardens. He immediately waved away the courtiers and senior soldiers scurrying around behind him and motioned toward a rose-entwined bower seat.

  ‘Thank goodness you’ve come,’ he said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with a small square of fine silk. ‘Have you seen the boats on the Thames?’

  ‘We had a brief look at them on our way here,’ replied Twilight. ‘An impressive fleet; must be over a hundred vessels.’

  ‘They are going to attack tomorrow unless I agree to their terms. Most of London has sided with them. My battle leaders tell me we are so outnumbered that they will completely overrun us within an hour.’

  Twilight looked at him closely.

  ‘Do you and your men have the stomach for such a fight?’

  The king brushed the silk square across his brow, looked into the distance for a few moments, took a look over his shoulder, and then muttered,

  ‘Not really. It’s unwinnable and all my people know it. Indeed, my senior officers are deserting or joining the other side as fast as they can find a way through the gates.’

  ‘So it’s damage limitation then?’

  The king stood up, then sat down again.

  ‘Can’t you use some magic? Blow them all to pieces . . . I don’t know, anything to make them go away?’

  ‘There are too many of them,’ Twilight said flatly.

  The king threw his hands in the air in a gesture of futility.

  ‘How did it all come to this?’ he cried plaintively. ‘What is to blame for this chaos?’

  ‘It’s called progress, your highness,’ said Tara cheekily.

  ‘What are their terms?’ Twilight got back to the business in hand.

  ‘They want me to forsake the throne in favour of Harold Godwine and go into exile. His two brothers, Beorn and Swein, will replace my senior ministers, and the rest of my court either joins me or dies. What is left of my army swears allegiance to them or will also be put to the sword.’

  ‘What about Robert Jumieges and the role of Archbishop of Canterbury?’

  ‘They haven’t mentioned him, but as there is no love lost between them my guess would be that his days on this earth are numbered.’

  ‘Just imagine,’ Tara said with a half smile on her face. ‘Swein as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Every nun in the country would be running scared.’

  ‘Would you, could you handle the negotiations for me?’ Edward asked, working the silk square, damp from his perspiration, across his brow with a shaking hand. ‘There is no one else I can trust, besides which they’ll probably just kill anyone else I send.’

  ‘They hate me as much as anyone. Apart from holding me responsible for the death of their father at your banquet, and Swein’s banishment, I dispatched all the Viking in a raiding party sent to kill me. Their longboat disintegrated at sea in a massive explosion. It was overkill; my anger was great because they killed Katre, my tyro’s mother and my companion.’

  The king looked at Tara. ‘I’m sorry to hear about the death of your mother.’ He turned to Twilight. ‘They may hate you, but they still respect your power and abilities. Will you talk to them for me . . . please! I appeal to you as your royal sovereign and king.’

  He was trying to hold on to some vestige of monarchic dignity but failing in the face of the insurmountable odds he was faced with.

  Twilight looked at Tara.

  What happened to our edict to leave the big battles to the kings and queens? he said, speaking directly to her mind.

  The death of my mother happened, the little redheaded tyro replied.

  ‘Alright, your highness, I’ll negotiate with them. What is the best you wish for?’

  The king let out a great breath of relief. ‘Anything but exile. I would wish to stay in this country. Quietly, well away from all affairs of state with just a few retainers to look after me.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Twilight softly.

  Swein, the former Earl of Hereford, did a double take, then went for his sword. He was standing on the banks of the Thames with the surrounded palace of the king in the background, supervising the landing of soldiers. His two brothers, Harold and Beorn, stood with him beaming at the four-deep column of well-armed men stretching as far as the eye could see along the riverbank before curving inland to encircle the palace. Edward the Confessor and what remained of his army were trapped; the Godwines would control the throne of England by midday. It was a good feeling and they were manifestly happy . . . until a vision appeared behind his brothers that had Swein reaching for his sword as fast as he could.

  Twilight and Tara stood there smiling at him.

  With his hand locked solid on his sword handle, he snarled at the smiling venefici, a sound picked up by his brothers, who spun around and also went for their swords, with the same result.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Twilight cheerfully. ‘We have been asked by the king to join with you to discuss the terms of his surrender.’

  ‘You’re a dead man,’ spat Swein. ‘And that redheaded brat with you.’

 
‘In that case,’ said the old enchanter, ‘I will cast every one of these soldiers into the river. With all that heavy armor they will be drowned within minutes, and London will be awash with their dead bodies. Then we’ll see where that leaves your invasion.’

  He raised his arm.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Harold Godwine quickly. ‘We will talk.’ He gestured toward a brightly coloured tent with a blue and yellow pennant fluttering from the top. ‘If you will just allow our legs to move we can talk in there.’

  Tara glanced at Twilight. His bluff had worked.

  With Swein muttering dark threats, they walked to the tent, ducked through the entrance, and sat down each side of a solid oak table with the remains of a meal and a parchment map of London on it.

  ‘Before we start perhaps you would care to place your weapons on the floor.’ Twilight’s voice was neutral.

  Swein’s face turned a mottled red and he was about to explode in seething rage at the indignity of removing his weapons when both Beorn and Harold nodded in agreement and put their swords and a dagger each on the floor. Reluctantly, deliberately, Swein followed suit.

  ‘And the dagger in your right boot and the one up your left sleeve,’ said Twilight quietly.

  Further angry looks but finally Swein complied.

  ‘First of all let me explain our position in all of this. We bear no loyalty or inclination to either side, despite the differences of the past. We have been asked to discuss his position by the king because there is no one else he can trust to undertake it.’

  ‘He’s a beaten man with nowhere to go,’ said Beorn, speaking for the first time.

  Twilight nodded. ‘I understand from the king that your wish is that he is exiled and Harold here takes the throne?’

  ‘The same way we were exiled,’ sneered Swein. ‘And Harold will make a far better king. He was born and bred for it by our father, the man you choked on a piece of bread.’

  ‘If I may say so,’ Twilight ignored the choking remark and directed his remarks at Harold, ‘exile allows time to regroup out of the eyesight or knowledge of the throne and its agents. Armies, weapons, and ships can be requisitioned, support and money raised. You have just proved how effective it is to regroup in exile by the numbers and logistics you gathered in Denmark. They’re all around us outside. What’s to stop Edward from doing the same?’

  The silence indicated that they hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘What else do you suggest we do with him?’ Harold asked.

  ‘Put him where you can keep an eye on him,’ said Tara. ‘Somewhere out in the country but isolated from the London spotlight and the politics of sovereignty. Give him a few retainers and a bit of forest with some deer to keep him occupied, and it’s our guess you won’t have any more trouble.’

  ‘Have you discussed this with him?’ This time it was Beorn. His tone was almost civil.

  ‘Briefly,’ replied Twilight. ‘He’ll accept it and we’ll have him out of the palace within the hour. You and your invasion will be remembered as being the only completely bloodless coup in the history of the throne of England.’

  ‘It won’t be bloodless if I have anything to do with it,’ snarled Swein, eyeing Twilight up and down.

  Harold nodded. ‘The three of us would like to discuss this . . . alone. Could you give us ten minutes?’

  ‘Provided you stay in here and do not attempt to pick up any of the weapons or contact anyone else, we will wait outside.’

  ‘No tricks?’ Beorn asked.

  ‘I can’t think what on earth you could possibly mean,’ replied the magic-maker.

  Ten minutes later they were back inside the tent.

  ‘We agree to your terms. Edward can stay on in this country at one of the country estates he no doubt owns, just so long as it’s remote. We will want two of our own men on his staff, which must number no more than fifteen in total.’

  ‘Just about enough to lift him to his knees after prayer,’ sneered Swein before turning his ire to Twilight and pointing his index finger.

  ‘You might have saved the worthless Edward, back-slayer, and worked your spell-bindery on my brothers here, but it doesn’t work with me. I won’t rest until you’re dead and your runt with you.’

  ‘Back-slayer, eh? You’ve been listening to some old Viking sagas involving the foul old venefica Freyja . . .’

  ‘Whose twin daughter, Go-uan, you killed from behind,’ interrupted Swein.

  ‘Not just killed,’ Twilight smiled, ‘but blasted into a spume of cosmic dust . . . like I can do with you . . . at any time. Remember this, foul mouth. I can kill you in any number of different ways whenever I choose to do so and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.’

  Just for good measure Twilight’s black eye glowed for a moment as he planted a few permanent images in the berserker’s mind of some horrifically lurid deaths. That would keep him awake at night, especially as the head and body being separated and dispatched each time bore a remarkable likeness to Swein’s own.

  Chapter 7

  ‘Plant-lore knowledge and husbandry have always been a great aid to the venefical cause. The long magus said that it was the purest form of sorcery, and its knowledge would always bring an extra dimension to any conflict.’

  Twilight and Tara sat high on the Ridgeway path overlooking Stonehenge. It was the same place the long magus had sat fifty-five years ago with the thirteen year-old Twilight before his first encounter with the Equinoctial Festival of the Cowering Dead. Now it was Tara’s turn.

  In much the same way as Twilight had at the same stage, Tara asked a thousand questions about the annual ceremony. Including the big one: what would happen if they didn’t do it? Twilight gave Tara the word-for-word answers that the long magus had given him. Some of them hadn’t satisfied him at the time and, purposefully, he’d been made to wait until a particular situation provided an answer, or he’d learned more, enabling him to work it out for himself. It would be the same for Tara, although he didn’t expect any unannounced meddling from an immortal as he’d had. Finally, there was the old Merlin mantra for her to take on board. In the presence of the nominated cowerer, di mortius nil nisi bonum, say nothing but good of the dead.

  It was time to go.

  As the swirling mists began to thicken, they stood in the centre of the great stone circle holding hands and awaited the first cowerer. Just before the mists thickened, Twilight gave little Tara a big smile and squeezed her hand. He had a fair idea who the first cowerer would be.

  And he wasn’t disappointed.

  Her father, Coyle Brogan, he of the Tara-induced bald head, was the first to begin the high-pitched scream in their ears. Mercifully he was quickly replaced by her grandmother and then the abbot. Skellighaven was to the fore, especially when the next one turned up at full volume.

  Leannan Sidhe arrived to begin her upper-register rant. Then the evil Earl Godwine, his oily tones almost indistinguishable from the witch fairy who had gone before him.

  Unknown others who had met their death at the hands of Twilight swooped, screamed their seething approbation, and just as quickly were flung away back into the emptiness of their self-induced hell.

  Never once slackening his grip on the small hand of Tara, Twilight dealt with every one of the cowerers in the same gentle but insistent voice. Reasoned, softly mannered replies pointing out the way they had led an unsound life that directly contributed to the deaths and violent domination of others. For this they had been punished by a permanent place in the cowering mists. It would always be so, and the next in line, who was here with him today for the first time, would resume where he left off in due course.

  Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Tara concentrated on the vital linkage with her mentor’s hand. As wave after wave of high, scabrous, and utterly frustrated voices assaulted her consciousness, she began to realize something.

  She could handle this. When her turn came she would cope.

  From that point on she relaxed.

&nbs
p; Then, to her sudden surprise, it was over and the darkness of early evening swept the gloomy mists away, and the mighty stone citadel of Stonehenge once again towered around them.

  Twilight, still holding tightly to her hand, beamed down at her.

  ‘I felt the moment you conquered the mists and began to understand you could do it,’ he said in the same gentle tone he’d used with the cowerers.

  ‘It’s dark. Have we been in the mists all day?’

  ‘Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself, eh?’

  They climbed the hills back to their vantage point and stopped to look down on the impassive circle of gray sentinel stones now standing out in the silver moonlight.

  ‘I feel a tremendous sense of achievement,’ said Tara.

  ‘So you should.’ The alpha enchanter smiled. ‘Today you fulfilled the great prophesy that was foretold before you were born. Today I and all the other astounders under their Destiny Stones at Avebury salute you and pay tribute to your great achievement. Today you, my special little Tara, braved the raging mists and became a true wizard . . . a proper venefica.’

  Edward the Confessor retired to a small country estate in the Nottingham area, and Harold Godwine became Harold II, King of England. Robert of Jumieges, Archbishop of Canterbury, managed to escape to Normandy with his head intact, and the great religious position he’d occupied was given by Harold to the Bishop Sigand, a quiet and deeply pious Christian considered a safe and noncontroversial pair of hands.

  Within a year Edward the Confessor was dead in suspicious circumstances that had Swein’s dirty hands all over it. Shortly after that the pathologically affected Swein was involved in another death. This time it couldn’t be ignored. This time he killed his elder brother, Beorn, in an ambush as he was returning from the supervision of naval training with a small escort of men on the south coast. One of Beorn’s men escaped the ambush to tell Harold. Who now had another problem. Was his own brother working his murderous way toward the throne?