Glancing over, he saw Fynavir lying curled in foetal position, like a corpse in a barrow, her breath a light rasp as she slept. She had shown little emotion when he had announced that he was leaving on a great Imram, a Journey, but he had expected no more. It had been long since things had been right between them, even before he defeated T’orc the Boar beneath the thundery peak of Mount Beddun when he was but a callow youth. For a while, when Amhar was born and there was much rejoicing in the tribe, a new warmth had grown between them, but over the intervening years it had faded again. She was quiet and dutiful, and men had not forgotten that she was the daughter of a Great Queen and, it was rumoured, a goddess of Sovereignty, so he would never do her any dishonour, for a great King must have a special Queen, for it was women who were bound with the earth that men walked upon…
But love… he smiled bitterly in the warm fuggy darkness… That was long gone, if it had ever existed in more than youthful fantasies. Gods, the hot-headed foolishness that had driven him to ask Chief Ludegran for her when he had known her all of one night! How green and impetuous he had been, a moonstruck boy! No wonder Merlin had been enraged! Beauty and status was not everything, nor was a dowry of gold and cattle… that was a lesson learned with age.
Leaning over, he took Fynavir’s hand and raised it gently to his lips as he had not done for many Moons. He had to wake her, speak with her. An’kelet would not journey with him to An-fortas’s domain, but another companion would take the long road to the Wastelands in the East. Fynavir would not be happy to hear his news, but it was her right to know before any other.
Fynavir rolled over and her eyes slowly flickered open; she blinked, confused, almost as if she expected another to be lying beside her, holding her hand. Abruptly she frowned, the corners of her mouth turning down. “What is it, husband? Why do you wake me before the Sun is up?”
“Shortly I leave Kham-El-Ard for the holdings of the Maimed King,” he said, “and I have chosen men from my warband to ride out with me. But one place in my company is unfilled… the place that would have been An’kelet’s had he desired to ride out with us.”
Her face became shuttered, guarded; she yanked the fur about herself and stared off into the darkness. “What of it?”
“I have pondered who might take my chief warrior’s place… and can think of but one. Fynavir, the time is come that Amhar is given a man’s proper arms and place within the tribe. It is right that he puts aside the name of childhood and take on a new name and responsibilities. It is my will that he is given his manhood rites on the morrow, and then we will ride for the Wastelands of An-fortas.”
“No!” Fynavir whirled to face him, eyes wild, a trapped beast’s eyes, and she struck at him with balled fists. “You cannot! My son! What if anything should happen to him? He… he is all I have… ! And he is your only heir…”
Suddenly, she dropped her hands and began to weep, rocking back and forth.
“Fynavir… his time has come,” Ardhu said softly. He wanted to embrace her but feared she would strike out again. “All the boys born in the same year as Amhar are now accounted Men of the Tribe. Some even have wives! If you try to keep him as a boy forever, he will come to hate you. And although none speak ill of him now—none would dare—in years hence tongues might flap more freely.”
“But… but what of his special gifts?” she whispered. “They do make him different, separate from the rest. The other lads do not speak to the Ancestors… and hear them speak back! They do not see the faces of long-dead warriors in the night!”
Ardhu had no more patience for debate. “No, and the other lads are not the sons of kings, wife. Amhar will not sit here weaving with women like some… some Fir-vhan, a man-woman! Nor will he be sent to Deroweth to don the robes of priesthood. He will become a Man of Kham-El-Ard and a true prince of his people.”
“I curse you, Ardhu!” Fynavir rose, flinging a sheepskin around her shoulders, and she ripped aside the hangings that protected their cubicle from prying eyes. “You think to do right, but I know in my heart that your stubbornness, your desire to meddle in things that would be best left alone, will bring doom to us all! You may know about war and the ways of men, but I know about my child and what is best for him! Your decision will bring a day of wickedness to us all. I feel this in my heart!”
Sobs catching in her throat, she ran from the Hall, a pale creature seemingly of mist and ice; she raced into the darkened door of the women’s house, where females of the tribe gathered when their monthly Moon-bleed was upon them and where it was forbidden for men to enter. Around Ardhu the men of the warband stirred, woken by the sound of raised voices, and shifted aside their heaps of sleeping-furs and sheepskins.
Hwalchmai rolled onto his haunches and poked at the fire-pit with a stick, pushing back his sleep-tangled hair with his free hand. “Is anything wrong, cousin?”
“No.” Ardhu shook his head. “Nothing is wrong, save a woman’s foolish fancies. This will be a day of great rejoicing, not of sorrow. A day we have waited too long to see. Today my son Amhar will become a Man of the Tribe and join the warband of Ardhu Pendraec on his very first quest.”
*****
The Sacred Pool below Kham-El-Ard lay silent beneath the canopy of trees. Mist coiled from the surface, especially when the air was cool, for the water of the spring was temperate, heated by some hidden Underworld forge tended by a god or spirit so old his name was forgotten even by the Wise like Merlin. On one side of the pool the warriors of Ardhu clustered together, faces painted with spirals and chevrons and zigzags and wearing ceremonial dress: headdresses of swan and jay and buzzard feathers and necklets of animal teeth—the beaver, the hare, the dog. Long cloaks, ochred familial plaques and shields proclaimed their lineages. The wealthiest wore their gold and bronze—all of it, no decoration spared—crescent collars imported from Ibherna, coiled arm twists and bangles, lip plugs and earlobe extenders, scintillating hair rings, and of course their collections of daggers and axes, some imported from the far shores beyond the Narrow Sea.
Ardhu stood amongst the company, holding Caladvolc unsheathed, its red-hot length glowing in the half-light. He wore the Breastplate of Heaven and a belt buckle made of gold to match, but little other adornment. It would be Amhar’s day today, his investiture as true prince of Prydn, and Ardhu would not rob the youth of any glory. It was Amhar’s time to shine; too long had he been kept in the twilight.
On the opposite side of the pool Mhor-gan of the Korrig-han, Ardhu’s full-blooded sister, waited for the new initiate to make his appearance. Ardhu had not asked her to come; indeed, he did not know how she, away in her thatched cult-house in the cradle of the valley, had learned of her nephew’s manhood rites, unless it was true that she could speak with the birds of the trees, the worms and beetles of the earth and the capricious wind itself. She wore her customary green kirtle, the colour of both life and the dead, and over it a cloak made of badger skins, black-and-white striped, the light and the dark. Badgers’ teeth, inordinately large and fierce-looking for a beast no bigger than a dog, clattered around her neck in a macabre necklace.
Ardhu gestured to Hwalchmai, resplendent in a diadem of hawk feathers that proclaimed his name—Hawk of the Plain and he lifted a cow-horn bound with bronze and blew upon it, a loud blast that sent birds shrieking from the tree-tops and rustled the leaves of the forest.
The greenery parted and in rode Amhar on a white mare. He wore a robe of the finest and palest linen, as white as the women could get it by bleaching it with urine. A golden band circled his neck but he had no other adornments. He had his boy’s bow slung over his shoulder and a borrowed dagger in a plain leather sheath. His dark red hair was tied back, save for the two braids that would be shorn if he passed his rites.
Ardhu looked at him with a growing sense of pride. Yes, it was time indeed for Amhar to take his place within his people. He would have to prove himself, even though he was a King’s son, but unlike Ardhu’s own long gone initiation at the great
henge of Marthodunu, there would be no chance of death or utter humiliation. Ardhu had outlawed such practices several years back, at least within his own demesne. What would it serve to have young men who need not be enemies fight to the death? Only the enemies of Prydn.
Hwalchmai blew his horn again and Amhar dismounted and knelt before his father on the bed of soft, rotting leaves that carpeted the forest floor.
“Today you come before me, my son and heir, to take your adult name and join us as a Man of the Tribe,” said Ardhu. “But you must first prove that you are worthy. What skills have you gained in your years, Amhar son of Ardhu? Show us what you might bring to the People!”
Amhar rose and raised his bow. “I have learned the path of arrowflight, the magic of the hunt,” he said, and he suddenly loosed an arrow from the string. It whirred away into the green gloom, a flash of white fletchings. A screech sounded from above and a bird suddenly tumbled from the sky, twirling as it plummeted down, to splash into the heart of the sacred pool. Thin streamers of blood fanned out along the ripples made by the falling body.
“Blood!” Mhor-gan’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Blood of the sacrifice, given to the Ancestors this auspicious day!” She knelt on the bank, mud oozing round her ankles, and let her long fingers trail in the blood-tipped waves, her eyes reading destiny in the patterns.
Amhar turned from the pool and held up his bow. “Father, is that the shot of a boy or a Man of the Tribe? Can I lay this weapon down or must I return to my mother’s hut for another year?” He spoke the ritual words clearly, without stumbling; he must have practiced long for this day, thought Ardhu with a flash of guilt.
“You may lay that weapon down,” answered the Stone Lord.
Amhar took his boy’s bow, turned it crossways, and with a violent motion snapped it over his knee. He cast the two pieces to the ground. “It is dead, as is he who was Amhar on this day.”
“Show us what else the boy who wishes to join the men round the fires can offer us.” Ardhu nodded toward Hwalchmai, who was drawing a bronze rapier from a cowhide sheath. He tossed the weapon to Amhar, who caught it deftly, and then drew a second long dagger from his belt, its hilt of amber pinned with gold studs—his blade the Piercer-of-Pain.
“Fight me, kinsman,” he said to Amhar. “Do not hold back your strength. See me as the enemy who would keep you from your place amidst the People.”
The seasoned warrior and the youth circled each other, moving in a crouch around the edges of the Sacred Pool. The watching men, excited at the thought of a fight, even if not one liable to cause serious injury, began to chant and stamp their feet. Axes were drawn and their hafts beaten rhythmically against the broad, bronze-bound faces of shields of oak and hide.
Hwalchmai made a sudden lunge forward, stabbing into the murky forest air. Amhar whirled away from him, and then circled round to engage, facing the Hawk of the Plain head on with neither fear nor reluctance. His borrowed weapon snaked out, striking, clattering against the slender, slightly-grooved blade of Piercer-of-Pain.
Hwalchmai looked slightly surprised and drove forward, forcing the youth’s arm up and exposing his side, a deadly move which could easily mean death to an enemy.
Amhar glanced down, realising his guard was off. Unexpectedly, he snatched back his blade from the dead-locked position, causing Hwalchmai to stumble forward in surprise, and at the same time grasped Hwalchmai’s hair and drove his knee staunchly into his kinsman’s stomach. The older man’s knees buckled and he fell to the ground, winded, Piercer-of-Pain clattering from his fingers.
“You are quick and deal a fierce blow, young cousin,” he said to Amhar, between gasps. “I deem you ready to join the King’s warband. Or any other warband you choose!”
Amhar reached out a hand to help him up; Hwalchmai was clutching his tender belly, though grinning “Forgive me for your bruises, kinsman. I hope I have not caused you much pain. But I did as you asked and played the game as if we were indeed foes on the field.”
Hwalchmai bowed, wincing a little. “You played it well.”
Ardhu approached his son and clasped his wrist, raising his arm aloft. Amhar still held the long rapier given him by Hwalchmai; it shone like a needle of flame as sunlight filtered through the tangle of boughs above and struck the elongated blade. “So now the boy may fight alongside the Men of the Tribe, and leave his mother’s hearth. He may eat with the Men and drink with the Men, and take to him a wife or wives of his choosing. Today he will give up the things of childhood and join ventures of the warriors of Ardhu Pendraec, lord of the Great Trilithon, Chief Serpent of Prydn—the Isle of the Mighty!”
The warriors started their chant, and blew upon horns to herald the acceptance of a new warrior into their ranks. Ardhu drew a razor from his belt-pouch and cut the two locks that symbolised childhood from the sides of Amhar’s head, and Mhor-gan kindled a small fire on a heap of flints that crackled and turned white with the heat, and she burnt the hair and uttered words over it, offering its essence to the hungry spirits who clustered around that ancient site, the oldest of the old who had chased the great White Aurochs across a land of pine before any man herded cattle or used the plough, and who had raised three great totems on the Plain, facing the maximum rising of the Moon.
Then Amhar was taken and bathed in the holy Pool, clearing the last vestiges of his old life away, and then he was robed again and given a beaker of fermented milk mixed with blood, a ritual drink more potent even than the golden mead. He drank it in one, and the ornate pot, already a hundred years old, was smashed to release its spirit, and its shards hurled into the springhead.
Mhor-gan came to him, the only woman present, the only female who would be allowed to witness these rites, as priestess and seer, talker to the gods and spirits. She gestured him to kneel and painted signs of protection on his face with a stick of ochre, and she gazed upon him with both sorrow and tenderness.
“You are a special youth, this is beyond doubt,” she said, taking his hands in her own. “But I can tell little more than that. The Ancestors cloud my vision with capricious mist, or perhaps Bhel Brighteye, who burns like the colour of your hair, had blinded me so that I may not look too deep into your Fate.”
“I do not wish to know my Fate, aunt.” Amhar looked into her eyes, earnest and serious. “It does not matter when or where or how, only that I do my best in the service of Ardhu Pendraec, Stone Lord of Prydn… my Father.”
“May the Ancestors guide you, Amhar,” Mhor-gan said, and she reached down into the Pool, still discoloured by the life’s blood of the bird he had downed, and fumbled in the mud and leaves and accumulated sediments. When she withdrew her hand, she held up a strange stone of a type not local to the area, broken clean in half, with a deep indentation in one side. The stone was a deep red colour, almost the hue of fired clay, though slightly lighter towards the centre. She handed it to him, upended, almost as if she proffered a cup, a cup born of the natural world.
He glanced at her, wondering. “This is a talisman,” she said, “left here in the pool by our most distant forbears; its magic is strong. As the days pass you will see it change; no longer red like blood, it will change to the colour of the evening sky before Bhel is gone but before Nud covers heaven with his cloak of stars. Drink from it, and it will surely protect you from all harm, imbuing you with the powers of the Ancestors.”
“I thank you, aunt.” He kissed her hand and hid the small stone cup inside his tunic.
Ardhu approached; in his hand he held a small wooden box bound with copper rivets. Opening it, he drew out first a fine flanged axe on a polished, hardwood shaft, and then a fine Ar-moran dagger with a gold pointillé hilt that matched his own older weapon. “These shall be your man’s weapons from this day forward, Prince of Kham-El-Ard, Khor Ghor and the West. The axe is my gift; it is named Head-of-Thunder. The sword was made for you in distant Ar-morah, on the orders of the Lord An’kelet, and it has waited too long for your hand. Kos’garak, the Triumphant One, is its
name.”
Amhar took the axe and thrust it through his belt. The sword he raised before his face, examining its gold and bronze beauty. The pins adorning the hilt were no bigger than hairs, arranged in patterns by a master craftsman. “These are worthy weapons. I hope I will bring honour to you with them, Lord.”
“And now I will give you one last thing!” Ardhu placed both hands squarely on the youth’s shoulders and looked at him with wonder, so different in looks and temperament to either himself or Fynavir… this magical boy who had been born beyond all hope, and who now was a Man to ride out alongside him. “I will give you the name by which you shall be known forever more to the people of Prydn. Amhar the child is no more. From this day forth… you will be the Prince Gal’havad, the Hawk of Summer.”
*****
Leaving the Sacred Pool in the trees below Kham-El-Ard, Ardhu went to find the stranger Pelahan and his cart of stinking remains. Gal’havad followed his father, walking on his right as befitted the heir of the Lord of the West, and Bohrs, Hwalchmai and Per-Adur marched close behind.
When they reached Pelahan’s wain of death, they saw the grim-featured man atop the cart, leaning over the dead and touching them, stroking their emaciated limbs as if willing them to live again. It was a tragic yet hideous sight, and Ardhu felt his stomach tighten in revulsion. The dead should be taken and disposed of decently, in an honourable way, lest their spirits be trapped on earth forever. “We are ready to go East with you, and see this desolate land of the Maimed King,” he said to Pelahan, “but the cart will stay here, Master Pelahan, and the carrion you drag with you shall be burned and given to the river.”
He approached the cart and yanked Pelahan away from his grim load. The strange easterner looked as though he might protest, then scowled and turned away. Per-Adur and Bohrs freed the scabrous oxen from their traces, and sent them away with smacks on the rump. Kindling torches, they hurled them amidst the dry stacks of bones, while Hwalchmai added dry tinder to keep the flames alight. Soon a roaring blaze took hold; skulls popped in the conflagration and the wood sides of the cart crumbled and disintegrated with a shower of sparks. Rancid smoke spiralled skyward, rising in a vast black plume over Kham-El-Ard.
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 7