Mordraed stiffened as Gal’havad burst into the hut like some creature borne of the raging storm, his hair a slick stream the colour of old blood against his white forehead, frigid water showering from his short, ox-skin cloak. Gal’havad came to him and cast his arms around him in a deep embrace, seemingly unaware of the rigidity of the other youth’s shoulders, the unfriendly set of his mouth.
“Mordraed, cousin, glad am I to see you.” Gal’havad’s voice was thick with emotion, bordering on tearfulness. “My world has grown dark and crazed, and I need to see one who is not part of that madness.”
Mordraed forced a smile upon his face as Gal’havad glanced up; it would not do to let the boy see that he was annoyed by this unexpected intrusion. He put what he hoped seemed a comforting arm around his cousin’s shoulders and drew him in toward the tiny fire that burned in the centre of the hut. The other lads who had fallen under Mordraed’s sway stared at the newcomer, some with near-open hostility despite his rank. Gal’havad appeared not to notice their stares and scowls.
“Now, what is bothering you?” Mordraed poured a weak beer into a crude black pot and handed it to Gal’havad. “Has Ardhu chased you from the Hall too?”
Gal’havad nodded dismally. “He is maddened with grief. Somehow I must convince him that he must not hurt my mother. He intends to punish her, but will not say in what way. I fear he will harm her in his anger.”
Mordraed rolled his eyes. “Gal’havad, consider it fortunate that she has not been put to death. She is, after all, a whore and a traitor.”
“Do not speak of her so!” Gal’havad shot back. “It is not your place to judge!” His hand instinctively went to his dagger-hilt.
Mordraed’s lips curled. So the boy had got some fire in his belly since going on his little quest into the East!
“Forgive me for my hard words, cousin. If it comforts you, my own mother is no better! Here, sit by our fire… we are all outcasts here, all those who do not quite fit into your father’s plans. He blames me and Agravaen for his sorrow too, you know; for although it was through us the traitor An’kelet was apprehended, we still have been banished from the Great Hall.” He sighed. “I just hope it is not a permanent ban. Otherwise, I will have to leave for distant lands to seek my fortune.”
“No… you cannot do that, Mordraed!” cried Gal’havad. “You… you are my only friend here. I have no others my age, and now that my mother is in disgrace and my father cold as ice to me and unwilling to listen, I would be greatly sore of heart if you left. You… you are like a brother to me.”
Mordraed almost laughed at the irony of Gal’havad’s words. “If you truly feel that I am your brother, then you must speak for me and for Agravaen… when the Stone Lord is calmer, that is.”
“I will,” said Gal’havad staunchly, “for all the good it will do.”
They fell silent and Gal’havad squatted by the fire, drying himself, and downing the rancid beer Mordraed had given him. Eventually the flames in the fire-pit died to embers and youths began to sprawl out under their fur cloaks and sheepskins, coiling together on the rushes like a pack of weary hounds. Gal’havad glanced around unhappily, unused to sleeping in such cramped conditions; but eventually he lay down facing away from the others, turning his face into the darkness. Soon the sound of soft, rhythmic sleep-breathing reached Mordraed where he sat a few feet away, finishing the last of the sour drink in his beaker.
Mordraed put the mug aside and slowly eased himself down into the rushes, lying flat on his belly. If he stretched out, he could almost touch Gal’havad’s back. One hand slid down to his hip, his finger hooking round the hilt of his dagger, drawing it an inch from its sheath. He had polished and sharpened it just the other day. One quick stab in the dark, and it would be all over… he would have done what he had intended to do in the Stones, had the malevolent Old Ones not prevented him. Eyes burning with a feral light, he reached out, his fingertips brushing his half-brother’s shoulder blade. Here, right here… one swift deep thrust and the knife would pierce the heart from behind…
But no… what was he thinking! Suddenly he snatched his hand back as it had been burned. It would be foolish to act now. Yes, foolish. He would be the first suspect if the boy was found dead, he knew that. Already Ardhu had grave doubts about his loyalty. Possibly he might be able to pass the blame onto Agravaen—maybe claim that his younger brother had been jealous of his friendship with Ardhu’s heir—but he doubted such a story would deceive the Stone Lord for long.
Vengeance must wait. But it would come.
Slowly his eyelids drifted shut over his death-blue eyes, and he sprawled next to the youth he had sworn to kill, throwing his arm over the sleeping youth’s shoulders, seeing no incongruity in using his intended victim’s body-heat to warm himself in the draughty hut. He slept deeply, his hand still curled round the hilt of his dagger—and did not dream.
*****
The priests came from Deroweth, highest priests and the Elders in flowing robes of bleached linen, with blue kirtles for the priestesses, green for the seers and speakers with the dead, and rust for the temple guardians and acolytes. They gathered in Kham-El-Ard before the doors of the Great Hall, and a huge beaker filled with mead flavoured by meadowsweet was passed between priests and the highest ranked warriors of Ardhu’s band. The pot was an enormous, ancient example, impressed with wheat grains and fingernail patterns; it was broken after the draught was drained and its shards buried in a pit near the threshold, alongside the offering of a newborn lamb. Then the priestesses poured fermented milk into coarse, rounded black pots and passed these to the women of the tribe, the ladies who accompanied the great warriors of Ardhu Pendraec, before depositing them at the fortress’s entryway, symbolic of the fertility of man and beast and a tasty offering to passing ghosts borne on the bitter wind.
On his high seat, Ardhu sat decked out in his full regalia—the lozenge and belt buckle of gold, the shield that was the face of Evening, Little White hilt and Caladvolc the Hard-Cleft, sword from the Sacred Pool. Rhon-gom the Lightning Mace was in his right hand, wreathed in bright strips of rolled cloth decked with talismans. These adornments had been newly added to the mace, and men wondered to see them for they were tokens of coming change. Ardhu’s gaze was still haunted, but the deadness of the weeks before had lifted from his eyes and a new purpose gleamed in them.
He gestured to the foremost of the priests to come before him. “Gluinval, is there still no word on the whereabouts of the Merlin?”
Gluinval shuffled forward in his pale and frothing robes, a spray of dog’s teeth round his neck and a crow’s skull plaited into his long sandy beard. “No word has come, Stone Lord of Khor Ghor. It is not unknown that wise ones of our order foresee their own deaths and go into the wilds to meet in their chosen way the shadow that stands at every man’s shoulder. I fear this may be true with the Merlin, blessed be his name among us! None may ever know where the bones of wise Merlin lie.”
Ardhu gripped the haft of Rhon-gom and a spasm of sorrow crossed his features. “I knew this day would come,” he murmured, half to himself. “But why now? He is still needed… more than ever the good counsel of my friend Merlin is needed!”
Shaking his head to clear it, he focussed his attention back toward the priest Gluinval. “So, if Merlin does not return, who will take the place of High Priest of Khor Ghor?”
“It will be decided in a testing of wise men, as it has been done for centuries. But we must wait till at least three Moons have passed, and we are sure the Blessed Merlin has gone to the Realm of Ancestors.”
“And for now? Who leads the priests; who guards the Doors between the worlds of the Living and the Dead?”
“The Merlin taught me, from my youth. I am senior among the wise of Deroweth.”
Ardhu leaned forward, his eyes suddenly darkened, growing wolfish in his thin, sun-darkened face. “Then tell me, as a wise man of Deroweth, what do you deem the fitting punishment for a faithless wife? But not any faith
less wife, who might easily be put away or given to a bog to appease gods and men. A wife who is also Queen, not just by virtue of marrying a man of status, but by her own lineage, which is bound to the spirits that rule the very soil we walk on.”
Gluinval licked his lips, knowing full well that Ardhu spoke of Fynavir and her betrayal. “Lord, according to the legends of our People, passed down by many tongues since the days of Samothos and Bolgos, a capricious woman of great beauty called Tlatga once lived in Belerion. They said her father was Lord Bhel himself, that he came as lover to her dam while she made offerings inside a chamber of the Old Ones on Midsummer morn. Her hair was fire from Bhel, her body white as the chalk of our blessed Plain, but her heart was frivolous and her actions unwise. She played two brave chieftains false and set them snapping like dogs at each other’s throats, driving their warriors to great battles not for cattle-wealth, lands or weapons… but to posses this faithless woman’s body. The crops withered and failed, neglected in their fields, and common men starved, while noble warriors, cruelly slain, rotted in their barrows. When the foolish chiefs realised what they had destroyed for the desire of Tlatga the Fair, they put their enmity aside and turned on the one who had scorned them both. They decreed that Tlatga would atone by ploughing anew the earth ravaged by her folly. Alone, she would pull the plough through the ruined fields in the manner of oxen; a shameful task for the daughter of Bhel—but after the thing was done, the Land was at peace and returned to its health. Tlatga was given to both chiefs, one through the dark months and the other the light months, for the rest of her days.”
Ardhu looked thoughtful for a moment, then he bowed his head. “To draw a plough like some humble beast, to grovel in the mud before the folk of Kham-El-Ard… I deem this a fit punishment for infidelity. No blood is spilt, no death will come, yet the affront to me and to the Land itself is made good. It will be done.”
He rose from his seat and beckoned to Hwalchmai, standing on his right in the place that had been An’kelet’s. “Cousin, with the departure of the traitor An’kelet of Ar-morah, I bestow on you the honour of being my right-hand warrior. Would that my eyes had not been blinded in the past and I had set you in that position from the start. Now I ask you to bring Fynavir of Ibherna to me, that her punishment is meted out without further delay.”
Hwalchmai bowed. “It will be done, Stone Lord. I will fetch her myself.”
He strode from the hall and returned shortly leading Fynavir, whose hands were bound with twine behind her back. She came without resistance, looking thin and frail, her uncombed hair matted over lifeless eyes circled with darkness. The same kirtle she had worn in the cave, streaked with An’kelet’s blood, hung rank and stinking on her gaunt frame. She no longer looked beautiful, but as if she was half in the spirit-world and longing for death.
She stood before Ardhu’s seat, unable to meet his eyes. “Kill me,” she said dully, her voice a dry rasp. “It is what I deserve. It is what I want. It is what the Gods will ask of me as atonement.”
“They would not desire the blood of one so faithless!” Ardhu’s voice was the lash of a whip. “And so you shall not die as is your wish. But you will atone for what you have done; you have cursed the Land by your actions and brought it to barrenness… and so you will plough it by your own hands, white as the chalk, and perhaps make it whole again. And then you will lie in my bed and be as you should have been had you not shamed yourself with An’kelet… my right-hand man… my friend of long years! Maybe then the spirits will take away your barrenness and give us more sons, that my Lands may be guarded by strong hands and Gal’havad have many kinsmen to stand at his back when the time comes for him to assume my mantle.”
Fynavir made a strangled sound in her throat and looked as if she might collapse at Ardhu’s feet. Ardhu rose from his seat and steadied her, taking her arm with surprising gentleness, as if he was a doting husband and not a man betrayed, wrestling with his own anger and need for revenge, fearing also the darkness and desolation he had seen in the East, the creeping cold and the steady flood of the rain.
She did not resist him. Her eyes held nothing, no fear, not hatred. Nothing.
They left the Hall and processed down the hill, surrounded by Ardhu’s chief warriors. The priests of Deroweth followed, chanting and making gestures against malevolent beings from the unseen world. Drums were beaten, and people from both the dun and Place-of-Light came running up from the river and the fields to see what was happening at Kham-El-Ard.
In the marshy lands near the Old Henge Ardhu stopped the procession. “Kneel, woman.” He gestured to Fynavir and then to the ground. She slumped to her knees in the grass, obedient, her head hanging. Ardhu grasped her thick hair in one hand and lifted it, yanking her head up and back, while drawing Caladvolc with the other. The watching people gasped, imagining for a terrible instant that he intended to behead her on the spot. Instead he swung the sword is a sideways motion and the blade sheared through her snow-pale locks, leaving only a few inches curling around her head. “This is the first offering, the first penance of the faithless wife,” he announced, holding up the hank of hair so that the gathered throng could witness its cutting. “Let the priests take it and give it to the Great Ones.”
Acting as high priest in the Merlin’s absence, Gluinval took the hank of shorn hair and, followed by his entourage of priests and seers, carried it through the entrance of the Old Henge. In the centre of the earthen ring, they built a cairn of small stones to which they added a magic brew—the bones of a frog, the skull of a bird, an eel and a dog’s tooth, all mixed up with hazelnuts, yew-berries and toadstools. Fynavir’s hair was spread over the top like a protective covering, and Gluinval used a flint strike-a-light to set the whole cairn on fire then danced wildly around it with his fellow priests, as the acrid smoke from the burning hair and magic stew coiled into the air.
When the pyre was reduced to ashes, the priests gathered up the remains and brought them in an urn to where Ardhu stood with Fynavir kneeling silently at his feet. The people from the local villages gathered round, wailing and crying out at this terrible sight they had never thought to see—their Queen shamed and their King seeking retribution for the wrong done to him. Fear gripped them, and horror; rumour had spread quickly of the Queen’s infidelity, and all knew what that could mean for their continued existence. They knew the gods would be angry, and the Old Woman of Gloominess would walk long amongst them, bringing a long Winter. Already they had seen too many grey skies, too many tears from the sky that washed their livelihood away.
Ardhu gestured for Fynavir to get to her feet; she seemed unable to control her shaking limbs, so Hwalchmai lifted her up from the ground, his face grim, hating every moment, and forced her to face her husband. Ardhu stared at her, eyes unreadable, his mouth a tight, thin line, and then he raised Caladvolc to her neck and this time cut off her filthy rags, leaving her naked to the eyes of the assembly. Gluinval reached into the urn he carried and brought out a handful of still-warm ashes, blackening her face with them—a mark of shame—before tracing symbols on the rest of her body that told of her shame, her dishonour of her lord’s bed. She recoiled as the priest touched her breasts and wept silently as two priestesses strode over, dragging a crude plough, and fastened the straps of its harness around her.
The crowd’s hysteria was rising; people screamed out unintelligibly and fell writhing on the muddy ground as if possessed by spirits out of darkness. The throng pushed forward, toward Ardhu, toward Fynavir bound to the plough—to what purpose none knew, perhaps no real purpose, only to move and cry out and wave their fists in both protest and agreement at the punishment of the woman who had been their queen for so long. Ardhu’s war band shouted at them and drew their axes, menacing the villagers as they drew too close, forcing them to take several paces backwards.
Ardhu turned angrily from them and grasped the handles of the plough, his knuckles bright white as he gripped the splintering wood. “Go, faithless bitch!” he snarled at
Fynavir. “Let us finish this for once and for all!”
Fynavir lurched forward, struggling in the traces. Mud splashed up her ankles and she almost fell. The plough bit into the ground and partly sank, as the soil was so saturated from the unseasonable rains. “Go on, use some strength, woman!” Ardhu raged, all his anger and hurt and loss bursting forth in a frenzied tide. None in Kham-El-Ard had ever seen him so angry, he who was known for being measured and calm, who raised his hand in wrath only at utmost provocation. “You are the daughter of a goddess, aren’t you? Special? An’kelet certainly thought you were special! He knew well the power in your thighs! Show me, your husband, what you are truly made of!”
Fynavir made a strangled sound and flung herself forward once more. Rain began to sluice down from the empurpled sky, making her shorn head frizz and curl like a lamb’s fleece, streaking the ashes on her skin until she looked like some strange striped beast, a creature of light and shadow.
Someone laughed in the crowd of villagers and suddenly the mood became even uglier. A sod flew, striking the back of Fynavir’s calf. “I curse you, White Phantom!” a woman shrilled, her voice so taut and high–pitched it sounded barely human. “Your lust has doomed us! My bairn has died, I have no milk… and the rains still come. This is your fault! You have cursed the Land. You are barren after one child due to your sin! You have brought evil on us!”
The crowd’s wailing ceased and a dark murmur came from them, a sound like thunder over distant hills, a murmur low and ominous. Several people rushed forward, arms swinging wildly, to be forced back by the men of Ardhu’s warband.
Ardhu ignored them, wrapped in his own private misery, intent on taking his own vengeance for the wrong that had been done him. “Pull harder, faster, woman!” he gasped to Fynavir, wiping the rain from his face with his arm. “Or do I have to smite you like a stubborn ox.”
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 18