The Circle of the Gods

by Victor Canning

  Tia, her spirits still in slow turmoil from her escape from Inbar, took his hand and kissed it. As he stirred with embarrassment, she said, “You are good to me, Master Ricat. The day will come when you shall be rewarded for your goodness.” Then, unpinning the brooch, she held it out to him, saying, “I thank you for the loan of this.”

  Ricat shook his head, smiling. “Keep it as a gift, Lady Tia. A gift to welcome you in my house.” Before Tia could protest he had gone.

  Touched deeply by his kindness, she went up to her room and, putting the cloth-wrapped bundle of her few belongings on the low table which stood in the center of the room, she sat at the window and looked out over the untidy sprawl of the town beyond which the slow curves of the river shone like a silver ribbon. The thought of Ricat’s goodness laid to beginning of a slow balm over the misery of her own feelings. Arturo stayed with Inbar, but she had no fears for his safety. Some strange god, she fancied, watched over Arturo. For herself, stronger now since she had known how close she had come to abandoning it, lived only one faith, one conviction—that someday Baradoc would return to her. Never again would her woman’s body or weak woman’s mind ever waver from that belief.

  Ten months after her marriage Mawga gave birth to a girl-child, which was given the name Sabele. By this time Arturo was well into his ninth year and grown taller and thinner as though his strength and bulking were hard-pressed to keep pace with him. Inbar showed no impatience that the child had not been a boy. There was time and plenty for that. Eleven months later, when Arturo was into his tenth year, Mawga gave birth again and this time to a man-child, who was called Talid.

  Inbar gave a feast in the long hall to celebrate the birth and long before he and the other men were too drunken to talk or understand sense he called for silence and then told the men of the tribe the changes he was going to make in the running of the settlement. He had now, he said, a son to follow him, and a man of wisdom and goodness had a duty to lay up not only treasure for the son’s future, but a future which should be peaceful, industrious and well-ordered. This was the duty of all men. He then told them the changes which were to be made in the settlement life. All the middens were to be cleared away and one main midden set up on the beach verge where the high spring tides would scour it away periodically. The river would be rock-dammed at the foot of the valley beyond the last of the huts and there and only there should the women do the washing. There would be cattle and pig pens well-fenced for the winter folding. Crops and cattle were to be held in common and each family to draw meat, fish and flour according to their size and their standing. Every youth would be trained to arms for defense against raiders, but no man or youth was free to take leave of the settlement without his permission. If any did so his family would be punished in his stead. When traders came whether by sea or land then a council of elders from the settlement would negotiate the bartering and there would be a fair division of all the goods purchased. There was talk, he said, of war and raiding and the rise and fall of new warlords throughout the land beyond Isca and as far as the shores of all the Saxon seas, but such trouble was no concern of the people of the Enduring Crow. If such trouble did eventually come then the Prince of Dumnonia would call the levies from each settlement and lots would be drawn among those of fighting age to determine who should go.

  There was more he said, but in truth few of the men paid much attention for not only had they heard most of it before, but they knew in their hearts that many of the things would not be done and that life would go on much as before. It was idle to speak against him and delay the moment of feasting and full drinking.

  Some time after this Inbar’s manner to Arturo began to change. When Arturo approached Inbar one morning, after the Chief had spent most of the night drinking, to ask permission to go out with one of the fishing boats Inbar refused him. Arturo began to argue and in the midst of the protest Inbar struck him and knocked him to the floor. Arturo, tight-lipped, picked himself up and left the long hall. He went down to the beach and sat on a rock, staring at the sullen grey sea of late autumn. He was no fool and knew that Inbar’s changing manner toward him came from good reason. He was held now in the settlement always under the eye of one of the tribe be it man or older boy. He was allowed no more to the cattle and horse grounds on the moor, nor even permitted to visit to old Galpan, the priest. Although no one had ever said so, he was a prisoner in the settlement.

  As he sat there, brooding, and watching a handful of black-headed terns diving for fry in the shallow water, Mawga came across the sands with two other women and, seeing him, left them and came to him. In the crook of one arm, wrapped in the loose folds of her gown, she carried her babe, Talid. The gown was of good stout linen, dyed blue and sewn with black beads around the hem and throat. Mawga now wore such clothes as she had never known in her life before. She gave him greeting and sat beside him.

  After some idle talk she said to him, “Arturo, you are grown now enough to know better how to approach Inbar. When he drinks and after drinking is no time to ask him for favours.”

  Arturo answered, “There is no proper moment for me to ask anything of Inbar. Every time he sees me he thinks of the shame he would have done my mother. Aie … and more than that. He sees that I am the son of Baradoc and the rightful one to be chief of this tribe when I reach full years.”

  “Nay. There is goodness in Inbar. Speak him fair and hold yourself proper to him and one day he will name you to be chief after him.”

  Arturo looked at her, his eyes widening a little, and the line of his lips slanted wryly. Mawga was good, but she was simple. He said with a nod to the babe in her arms, “You know not Inbar. He waits but to see that Talid grows into sturdiness and health. Aie … maybe he waits for more than that. For the time when you bear him another healthy boy-child. Then will come the thing he wishes for me.”

  Mawga’s face clouded with anger. “Speak not so. You are his ward. The gods would mark him if he harmed you.”

  “’Tis a small point. He will not kill me himself—any more than he could boldly kill my father. But I can be killed by the chance fall of a rock from the cliffs. Or the mischance of a badly aimed hunting arrow. Aie … or from the sudden movement of a boat as I help haul the nets while fishing.” He leaned forward and placed the tip of his forefinger on the soft nose of Talid, and went on, “He is pink and soft and helpless like a newborn harvest mouse in a straw nest. And so, for the moment, am I.”

  Mawga shook her head. “Your mind is full of black images. Inbar is a good man.”

  “That you must say—for he is, to you. But if he is so good, then ask him for permission for me to go and join my mother in Isca.”

  “That I cannot do for it is not my place to meddle in Inbar’s affairs.” Then, seeing Arturo grin broadly, she went on, “Why do you smile so?”

  “Because—and I do not blame you—you did not draw back from meddling the day you helped my mother. Tether me a pony in the thorn scrub at the valley bend and one night be careless with the lock key of the great hall. Inbar would never suspect you, though he might beat you for carelessness with the key.”

  “You ask too much—and without reason. But for love of your mother what I have heard I have not heard.”

  Mawga rose and walked away, and Arturo watched her without emotion. He had not expected her to help. Nobody would help him for none was rash enough to meddle in the affairs of Inbar. Raising his eyes from watching Mawga, he saw that on the high cliff behind him one of the older youths was sitting on an out jutting crag, looking down at him. So they watched, he thought, day by day, and the nights saw him safe within the long hall. Well, then he must use the cunning of the cliff fox, the patience of the fishing heron, and find his own way out, for to Isca he would go. He picked up a piece of dried bladder wrack and began to pop the black blisters in its strands. As he did so it seemed to him that suddenly the gods were speaking to him and giving him the sign which would show him the way to escape. He lay back on the rock, watching the
grey scud of clouds sweeping eastward up the coast, and began to chuckle to himself. Yes, the gods had spoken and given their sign. Yes, he would go to Isca, but not to stay for long, since even the Prince might for his own reasons send him back. What matter that he had so few years? The years would come, and there were always travelling parties that would take him as horse or mule boy. He would find his own way, make his mark and when manhood was with him he would come back. Aie! Aie! … the whole world lay to the east and a man should see it before he came back to his own people to settle down.

  That evening in the long hall Inbar was good to him, sat him at his right hand to eat and allowed him an extra beaker of mead, and Arturo showed a due gratitude and cheerfulness which he did not feel. He knew quite well that Mawga must have spoken to Inbar on his behalf and urged him to show more kindness to him.

  The next morning Arturo set about gathering the things he wanted to make good his escape and since he did not stray from the settlement area little notice was taken of him. Not once did he go down to the beach or beyond the settlement bounds for the next week. He loafed about the cave, watching and talking to the women baking bread and grinding corn. He spent time each day to sit and talk to Bada, who, apart from being the horn blower, was a skilled bowmaker. Arturo took delight in the man’s adroitness in shaping and fashioning the layers of wood to make bows, and learning from him how to tell by look, feel and hand-tensing the best lengths of gut and sinew for use in finely plaiting drawstrings. Since autumn would soon pass into winter, and selected cattle and swine were now being taken to the slaughter pen for killing and curing against the hard days to come, he would sit atop the fence of the killing pen and watch and talk with the tribesmen working at the skinning and quartering of beasts. He was polite, ever cheerful with everyone and willing always to humour Inbar and to serve him. But though this, he knew, pleased Inbar, he noticed that always someone, man or boy, and different every day, watched him.

  Only at night, as he lay on his bed, did his face show his real thoughts, stubborn thoughts that matched the stubborn lines of his face and which made him clench his teeth and grind them slowly. But when everyone else in the hall was asleep, he would sit up quietly and, by the dim light of the red glow of the turf and peat fire, he would draw from inside the straw-stuffed palliasse of his bed the things he had quietly filched during his loafing days. He needed little light to work by for his preparations were simple.

  By the near end of October when the new moon was passing to its first quarter, Arturo had everything ready. He only needed Inbar to sit after Mawga, himself and the servants had retired to bed, as he did sometimes, warming himself at the night-piled fire and drinking a last beaker of mead or wine before retiring.

  When the right moment came he was favoured by the weather and the tides. As though, he thought as he lay abed, fully dressed and with his needs for escape concealed under his tunic, the gods were on his side.

  Through his partly open bed-curtains he watched Inbar sitting on a stool by the peat fire, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and a great beaker of mead cradled in his hands as he warmed it. The thought had been in his mind during his planning that he could kill the man, but he had decided against it. Inbar could have engineered some accident to kill him and there would have been no trouble. But if he killed Inbar without honour like some assassin, then the blood-mark would have been put on his name by the Prince of Dumnonia and no man in the west would have given him aid or shelter. No matter, he thought, as he watched Inbar raise the beaker and drink, the time for an honourable killing of Inbar would come. This was no moment to use the knife which he carried bound to his right leg under his long trews.

  Inbar coughed and hiccoughed as he swallowed his drink and his body swayed a little as he was lulled between part sleep and part intoxication. Arturo slipped from his bed platform and with no attempt to quieten his movements walked toward the fire.

  Inbar heard him and half turned. In a good mood from warmth and drink, he smiled and said, “What, not abed and fully dressed, my Arturo?”

  “I was cold and couldn’t sleep, my lord.”

  Inbar said nothing for a moment or two, but the smile stayed on his lips. He held out the beaker and Arturo took it and drank a little of the mead and then handed the beaker back.

  “It puts warmth in the gut,” said Inbar.

  “And dreams in the head,” said Arturo, thinking that if the opportunity he needed did not come then he would try again some other night and there would, because of this night, be no suspicion in Inbar.

  Inbar belched gently and said, “And what dreams does my Arturo dream?”

  Humouring him, Arturo answered, “That the days between me and manhood were gone.”

  “And if they were?”

  “Then, my lord, I would ask you leave to take my arms and go east to fight against the Saxons now that the troubles have started again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “From every peddler and packman who passes. Ambrosius and Vortigem are in arms again.”

  “More likely against one another than against the long-keel men.” Eyeing him for a moment in silence, Inbar gave a sudden laugh. “And which would you serve? Vortigern, who to save his life once married the harlot daughter of Hengist? Or Ambrosius, who, like his father once, dreams of wearing an emperor’s purple?”

  “Ambrosius is of our race. I would serve him and, by serving well, do honour to the people of the Enduring Crow.”

  Mellowed by the mead, Inbar handed him the beaker and said, “Here, cool your hot blood with this and wish not your young years away so readily.”

  “Nay, my lord. I have had enough.”

  Inbar nodded his head and withdrew the beaker. “And so have I. Enough so that my bladder calls for relief.” He rose slowly and, putting his hand on Arturo’s shoulder, said, “Go to bed, and dream not of fighting.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  As Arturo began to walk to his bed Inbar moved to the main door and drew from his belt pouch the long key of the heavy wooden lock. He unlocked the door and went out. The night air swept in and sent the grey fire ashes swirling. The door swung almost closed behind him. As it did so Arturo turned quickly and went to the fire. He picked up the stout length of oak plank which lay there for prodding the turves and ran to stand against the wall so that the inswinging door would hide him.

  Outside he heard the sound of Inbar relieving himself, and from the far end of the hall came the light sound of Mawga snoring. Without harming Inbar he could have slipped out and run for liberty, but Inbar would have raised the alarm and every man, boy and dog in the settlement would have been soon hunting after him. Such a shift would have served him nothing.

  Holding the oak post two-handed, Arturo waited. He heard Inbar belch outside and then the shuffle of his feet as he turned to enter. As the door swung open slowly Arturo raised the oak plank, stepped forward to clear the swinging door and crashed the long post down onto the man’s skull.

  Inbar collapsed to the ground and lay still, and the door swung back to be held by his prone body, which sprawled across the threshold. Arturo, moving now without excitement or clumsy haste, bent over Inbar and pulled him free from the threshold and then took the key from the lock. He went out and locked the door from the outside and began to run toward the scrub and bracken growths that grew up the side of the valley. When he reached the first of the bracken he sent the key flying deep into the now dying growths.

  Reaching the crest of the valley side, keeping well below the skyline to avoid being seen by any of the settlement patrols, he dropped his pace to a steady trot, heading always east and on a parallel line to the cliffs. He had long discarded the temptation of striking inland and making a bid overland for Isca. His best chance of escape was by a route which none would dream that he would risk.

  He moved steadily along the line of a wide gully that ran parallel with the sea on his left. There was light from the stars and the thin slip of the new crescen
t moon. After a time the gully sloped upward and was lost in a maze of rocks and broken ground not far from the cliffs’edges and here Arturo followed a narrow path which took him out along a headland which he knew well. When he reached its point he climbed down its face, disturbing the roosting seabirds, until he firmly stood on a flat rock at its foot. Some way below him the rock foot disappeared into deep water, the sea heaving and swinging as the tide, which some time before had been at full ebb, was now setting in flood eastward along the coast. Under the light of the stars and the moon Arturo could see the dark line of current streaming away from the headland out to sea. It was a current which the men of the settlement used in their fishing for one could work the tides to go west or east on the ebb and return on the flood. Arturo knew that many, many miles away to the east the current swung inshore again and would carry a man with it if he humoured it. To fight it was to ask for an early drowning, and to ride with it for the long swing out and back called for the strength and endurance of more than most men since the body weakened fast with just the effort of keeping afloat.

  But, as Arturo had realized when his bursting of the bladders of sea wrack had set him thinking of escape, that which a man could not achieve by strength he might well, with some risk, bring to fruit by artifice.

  He sat down and began to work fast. From beneath his tunic he pulled out three pigs’bladders stolen from the slaughtering pens and, blowing them up, trapped the gut ends with thin but strong lengths of old Bada’s bowstring sinews, leaving small loops in the thonging through which he ran a long length of thickly braided gut to fasten the three bladders together so that he could slip them over his head and secure them under his armpits to keep him afloat without any effort on his part. Inside his tunic he had, wrapped in a large piece of pig bladder, two flat rounds of hard bread and a slice of smoked neat’s flesh. The tidal current would eventually bear him safely to shore but, although the sea lacked yet its biting winter cold, it could sap strength and the body’s warmth. Against this the blood’s fire must be stoked with food. As for thirst … well, that must be endured if there were not juice enough in a handful of small crab apples which he carried with the other food in the blouse of his belted tunic.