by M. K. Hume
‘Frankly, Myrddion Emrys, you don’t matter sufficiently to the success or otherwise of the alliance to be any threat. If I ask advice of anyone, you are one of the best choices, because no one will listen if you inform on me.’
Myrddion nodded at Thorismund’s convoluted, but accurate, assessment of his worth.
‘I was lost when I rode into Attila’s camp.’ Thorismund laughed sardonically. ‘I was looking for Father – and I had no idea where I was. Now Aetius thinks I’m a fire-eater and a threat! He’d rather strip the alliance bare than have the Visigoths snarling at his back. Believe it or not, he fears me because I got lost in the darkness. The man is so used to treasonous thinking that he expects such behaviour from everyone.’
‘Did you explain your mistake to him?’
‘Do I look crazed, healer? Of course not! When you lie down with wolves such as Aetius, you’d better make sure your teeth are very sharp, as my father always said. I’ll let the Roman think I’m more audacious and courageous than I really am.’ Myrddion nodded in agreement. ‘As for the situation at home, Aetius is half right. My brothers might be tempted to chance their arms against me. Perhaps! Do I stay with Aetius and wait for a knife in the ribs in the dead of night? Or do I return to Tolosa and secure my throne?’
Myrddion placed his finger directly on the seat of the problem. ‘Can Attila hurt the Visigoths now?’
‘No. He can’t hold this part of Gaul, even if he wins tomorrow’s battle. He must be nearly out of supplies for that vast horde. He can’t hurt the Visigoths any more than he has already done.’
‘Can the Romans hurt the Visigoths?’
‘Ah, now you have it in a nutshell. If I die, my brothers will scrabble for power like dogs and my son will have little chance against them. I need time!’
Myrddion smiled at the older man and laid one hand on the bowed shoulders. ‘You know the answer then, my lord. The blood that is shed in the name of ambition is much the same the world over. Your position must be bolstered in foundations of stone. But first your father must be buried, as must your many dead, so leave your decision for a while. Aetius will go down his own road, no matter what I or my prophecies might promise him.’
Thorismund raised his head and grinned fiercely. ‘Aye. You were right with every detail of your cursed predictions. I should hate you, Myrddion Emrys, but how can a man hate the wind that carries the promise of a storm? Better I should be your friend than your enemy. Should you pass through my lands, call on me or mine if you need assistance. I will remember the kindness you showed to my father when you did not tell him that he would surely die. My father was no Merovech who assiduously courted death, so your silence was generous.’
‘Your father was a closed and secretive man whom duty sorely harried. How could I add to his woes? Lord, acquit me of a kingly generosity, for I was silent because your father carried too many woes already. Besides, I think he already knew his fate.’
Thorismund sighed, and his love was plainly written on his face. ‘Yes, my father was the centre of power for too many years to ever sleep soundly in his bed. He loved beautiful things, you know, and he was concerned for every man who gave him loyalty, so their deaths affected him deeply. His life had been hard, and he feared death. He might have known his fate in his secret heart, but suspecting and being told are very different things. No, you were generous.’
Silently, Myrddion nodded and left the campsite, leaving the new king to ponder over brutalities and broken alliances.
As the red morning dawned on the second day after the battle, Attila sat in his camp and brooded, while Aetius paced his tent and worked out strategies that would save Gaul for the Empire. The Catalaunian Plain was wreathed in smoke, for the armies were burning their dead. Myrddion feared disease more than he feared Attila, and he welcomed the acrid smoke and the stink of roasting flesh.
If Attila was destroyed, then the Visigoths would be the uncontested rulers of this whole wide land, and Aetius understood that he lacked the power to stop them from consolidating their control. If it served his purposes, he would murder Thorismund and send the Visigoths scurrying back to their rat-hole at Tolosa. That he might spare the Dread of the World, a man responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, was of little importance to Flavius Aetius, magister militum and king-maker. The balance of power must remain tipped in Rome’s favour.
‘Needs must!’ Aetius told the silence of his campaign tent. ‘Needs must!’
Myrddion understood the edges of the Roman general’s thoughts, for he retained a memory of his trance, a strange after-shadow that warned him that Aetius was a truly dangerous and ruthless man who lacked even the justification of patriotism. Aetius sought to elevate his family to the throne of the Western Empire, and if allowing the Hun to live would ease that path, then he would not care if a million further men died on the altar of his hubris.
Myrddion realised that King Vortigern had not been so very bad after all. He had sought to achieve and retain power over his vassals, but he had ruled well for many years. Vortimer, Ambrosius and even Uther were Celts or Romano-Celts who were devoted to their land and their subjects in their own different fashions. But Aetius was obsessed with the acquisition of personal power and the elevation of his family, even if the Empire was destroyed in the process. Myrddion searched his heart and his memory to find those motives in the great men he had known, and failed.
‘I am learning, Cadoc, what true wickedness is. And it’s not always to be found in cruelty or in violent murder. Sometimes, wickedness can wear a fair and reasonable face and swear that it fights for the lives and welfare of all. True wickedness cannot tell the difference between a lie and the truth.’
‘Whatever you say, master,’ his apprentice replied blankly. Sometimes, Myrddion spoke in riddles, and Cadoc, being a plain man who dealt with what he understood when it crossed his path, always took the line of least resistance.
In his secret heart, Myrddion felt his slow anger building. When powerful men exerted their influence to harm those who were weaker than themselves, or less intelligent or more sensitive, then the healer felt his temper ignite somewhere under his ribs. He had seen too much violence and random cruelty to be unmoved by the death of even one man.
The following day, the funeral of Theodoric was celebrated and then, regretfully, Thorismund put his nation first and led his army out of bivouac, away to the south and Tolosa. Vechmar went with them, along with his wagons and the Visigoth wounded.
That evening, four days after the Battle of the Catalaunian Plain, Prince Childeric summoned the healer to the campsite of the Salian Franks. Myrddion dressed carefully for the occasion, for he planned to say his farewells to Merovech. The dead king was his avowed lord, unwanted, but his liege none the less.
Before speaking to the healer, Prince Childeric led Myrddion to a small tent on a low rise some distance from the campsite. Four warriors guarded the outside of the tent, one for each corner of the world, and each wore a muffler of wool across his mouth and nose.
Myrddion could smell the green, acid stink of corruption long before he reached the rise, as the prevailing wind brought the smell directly to them. Childeric watched the healer closely for a reaction, and Myrddion knew that he was being judged. But his trade was to deal with death on a daily basis, and Myrddion had learned to breathe through his mouth so that he was no longer sickened by decay. Far worse than the smell of the dead was the same deadly reek within the flesh of those who remained alive.
Merovech was laid out in a wooden sarcophagus that Childeric’s smiths had sheathed with lead to minimise the outward signs of corruption. The lid lay to one side, ready to be nailed into place when the new king gave the order.
Washed, dressed and with his hair freshly oiled and combed, Merovech looked surprisingly young under the grey marbling of his flesh. The body was swelling under the rich armour and the nails of the fingers that held his sword’s pommel were purpled and seemed to be loosening in their beds. Childeric and M
yrddion looked down with shared regrets at the reckless, masculine face that possessed a special, marred beauty.
‘I didn’t know him well, but your father was an honest man and he was a wise and able ruler,’ Myrddion said as he looked down on the ruined flesh. ‘He asked very little of me and treated me with respect.’
‘Aye, healer. He has passed on his duties to me, but he would have appreciated any words or prayers that you could give him to speed him on his way. He believed that, under the skin, you were his brother.’
Myrddion searched his memory for one of his grandmother’s prayers to the Mother, and intoned an invocation to the midnight Lady of Winter who rules when the old king perishes and is replaced by the King of Springtime. ‘May the Mother who loves us all guide this good man’s journey to the abode of the gods. May she take his hand in the darkness and lead him along the dim paths from this life into the next, so that his feet neither falter nor stumble, and he comes at last to the Father and the great halls of the Otherworld. May he bless his son from beyond death and help him to rule wisely and well, so that the Franks live in peace and prosperity in this land that Merovech helped to save. As the Mother wishes, so shall it be.’
If Childeric was insulted by this women’s magic, he gave no sign of it. He called the guard into the tent and instructed them to seal the lid on Merovech’s sarcophagus and place it in the great wagon that awaited it. Then, once the carpenters had come to nail the coffin shut and caulk every crevice with pitch, Childeric led his guest back to his tent, where wine, fruit and nuts waited them.
‘You will wonder why I have called for you, Myrddion, now called Emrys. First, I release you from your service to my house. My father never liked to constrain you, but he needed your skills, even if he felt guilty at forcing you to obey. Believe me in this, for we spoke of it in the hours before he died.’
‘Thank you, my lord. I am grateful for my freedom, as you can imagine, although I doubt that Aetius will let me go so easily.’ Myrddion smiled, and Childeric laughed ruefully in agreement. ‘How did your noble father die, my lord? I know that I foresaw his death, but the scrolls of time are imprecise and I confess to curiosity.’
‘The Alans and the Germanics were under attack and my king commandeered a troop of cavalry to relieve the pressure on them. He slew many men with his sword, but was taken by an underhand blow even as he killed the man who slew him. My father was content to die, believing your prophecy that he had founded a dynasty of kings. Did you speak the truth?’
The air Myrddion breathed felt odd and he remembered those rare times when he had spoken consciously of feelings he didn’t truly understand. Now he struggled to describe accurately the half-formed images that chased themselves through his brain.
‘I spoke the truth, Childeric. You will die an old man and you will be known as the leader of a great people. You will fight many battles and I see you serving the Western Empire for a time, although I also see a scroll that is torn in half as if a treaty is broken. You will then serve the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople, with greater willingness.’
‘But what of the Frankish people? Will they endure?’
‘This whole land will bear the name of your tribe, Childeric, for over two thousand years. Do not despair in the hard times to come. Your son will eclipse both you and your father, and will wrest a great throne out of chaos. You may have faith in your gods. I do not lie, although I cannot know if I speak the whole truth.’
‘Thank you. Now drink, and I will be an ordinary man for one more night. I’ll leave for the north tomorrow. True or not, your vision gives me heart, for truly the governance of men is a hard road and one I would not willingly choose without some trust in the future to which it leads.
When Myrddion finally left the tents of the Salian Franks, he stumbled a little from weariness and the good Frankish wine he had consumed. Although he was bone tired and sickened by his part in this most pointless of battles, he picked up a clod of damp earth and squeezed it between his long fingers.
‘The Battle of the Catalaunian Plain should have been a great victory, but with the Salian Franks and the Visigoths gone Aetius must let Attila escape. So much carnage for no clear result. This earth has become red with the blood of countless warriors and what has come of it?’
Myrddion had spoken aloud, for such heart-sickness demanded that he give it voice. But then he fell silent, smelled the scent of sun-warmed grass and watched the stars wheel above him in strange patterns that he couldn’t read. Only time will show if all this sacrifice has any purpose, he decided, and then started as an owl began to scream from a small coppice of trees.
‘The hunt,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Always the hunt!’
Then, drunk and sick of thinking, he staggered off to a warm bed on the sweet, green grass.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ROMAN WAY
Gorlois rode through the fields of summer, heavy with grain and pregnant with ripening fruit. Even the hedgerows bore a bounty of berries ripening under a clean sky that seemed a world away from the chills of winter. Yet although the sun warmed his leather jerkin and beaded his bare arms with sweat, Gorlois felt a chill in the region of his breast bone.
Since his queen had miscarried, she had failed to thrive. Tortured by thoughts of a lost son, Ygerne had sunk into a deep gloom through which her night terrors had returned. For years, the harmony of Gorlois’s house had been free of Ygerne’s frightened, haunted fancies, but now her imagination conjured up images of bloody babes and dead bodies piled in ugly drifts like cordwood. Increasingly, she searched for meaning in a universe that seemed crazed and disordered, and only an itinerant priest had brought her a fleeting period of peace.
So pagan Gorlois, still faithful to his household gods, had ridden to Glastonbury, the holy place that had been revered for a thousand years and even in the forgotten years before those times, when goddesses had wandered through its long grasses and sung by its sweet waters, to beg one of the holy men of the Christian god to journey to Tintagel to succour his wife.
Never alone, for this land was still wild and dangerous and far from the rules of law, Gorlois led his detachment of six men towards the wooden buildings that clustered a little way from the flanks of the tor. Springs rushed out of the side of the hill, and he could hear the subterranean murmur of a hidden river and noted that water lay in deep trenches beside the verdant fields, so the land appeared to be stitched together with skeins of silver thread. Long before the group of armed men reached the timber outbuildings, several cowled figures in homespun robes walked serenely out onto the roadway in welcome.
‘Who disturbs the peace of Glastonbury?’ a compact man murmured, his hands buried in the sleeves of his robe.
‘I am Gorlois, king of the Dumnonii tribe. We are your neighbours. I seek a priest to advise my queen, who has been saddened by the loss of a child.’
Quietly, the man lowered his cowl and Gorlois saw a Roman head, austere in its carved beauty, atop a heavily muscled body that seemed out of place in its homespun robe. The hand that ushered the king towards the rough, barn-like building where visitors and penitents were housed was strong, calloused and blunt-nailed, and would have been at home wielding a short sword. Gorlois summed up the priest at a glance. An ex-soldier, he thought. And a man dedicated to the strategies and arts of war.
The priest’s eyes were dark and dignified, but Gorlois saw knowledge behind those brown irises, and a deep well of sadness that matched the greying, close-cropped hair which seemed to beg for a helmet.
‘If I may be so bold, Father, what is your name? Did you serve in the legions?’ Gorlois knew the questions were impertinent, but kings can always cover any social gaffes with the cloak of their position. He grinned with unconscious charm, and the priest immediately forgave him for his curiosity.
‘I am Lucius, a humble servant of the one God. I was a soldier once, long ago, and in another life. In those long-gone days, I washed my hands in blood until my brain sickened, but I now lab
our in the fields in expiation for my many sins.’
Every war eventually ends, as do the darkest thoughts. Childeric had already left the encampment, heading towards the road leading to the north. In a pall of heavy dust, his troops rode protectively around the wagon that carried Merovech’s body, offering their last respects to a noble king. Then, when the camp was stripped of its strongest allies, news came of Attila and the Hungvari horde.
That dawning, Myrddion had felt a physical wrench when Captus came to him as the first stains of another day coloured the sky.
‘Wake up, Myrddion. Come on, man! Do you need a dowsing in cold water?’
Myrddion opened one bleary eye and realised that the pounding in his head was a result of four mugs of red wine in honour of the dead Frankish king. Swearing off the excessive consumption of alcohol forever, Myrddion raised his head from his pallet and saw that the sun was rising. Around him the field hospital was abustle, as wounded Franks were loaded into wagons with as much care as possible.
‘Damn your eyes, Captus! I was with Prince Childeric until after midnight. I drank more wine than I’m accustomed to, and now I’m paying the price. Speak . . . quietly . . . please.’
Captus had hunkered down beside the simple pallet, but now he rose to his feet with a wince of protesting knee joints.
‘Getting old, friend Captus?’ Myrddion quipped acidly, as he used the back of one hand to block the steadily rising sun. ‘Serves you right for waking me.’
‘If you’re planning to be unpleasant, I’ll leave without saying goodbye,’ Captus snapped, only half joking.
‘I’m sorry, Captus, you’re leaving? Of course you are! How foolish of me. You’ll accompany your new king as he bears Merovech home for burial.’ Myrddion sat up on his pallet, swung his legs sideways and rose to his feet with the fluid, athletic flexibility of youth. Captus experienced a momentary stab of envy for the recuperative powers of younger men.