The Circle of the Gods

by Victor Canning

“Then take this to your son and give him this message. In three years’time if he brings me the bowl that is wrapped in that cloth he is a free man. Until then death waits for him in my lands and those of Count Ambrosius. Also, since you are his father, you will pay the death price to the families of my guards who were slain.”

  “So shall it be.”

  Baradoc slipped the wrappings from the bundle, but already he knew well what lay within, the silver Christos chalice which old Asimus had given to Tia and him over twenty years ago.

  On his return from the Prince to Ricat’s lodgings, where Tia waited for him, she said, “Who will you send to find Arturo?”

  “I go myself with two of my men.”

  “How will you find him?”

  Baradoc smiled and, reaching for her hand, said, “He is my son and though wild and without sense his mind when his skin is at stake works as mine would. I shall find him.”

  “The gods protect him.”

  Holding down a sudden movement of bitterness, Baradoc said softly, “Why should they not? Already he talks with them like a familiar. The otters will feed him with fish and the ravens bring meat and the sparks from his flint will kindle wet tinder to give him fire and warmth.…”

  Two days later in the early forenoon, while Arturo and Durstan rested their horses just off the old track that ran up to the north from Sorviodunum to Cunetio, Baradoc rode up to them, leaving his two companions on the track below. Both Arturo and Durstan had long since seen the party approaching but when Durstan had looked inquiringly at Arturo he had merely smiled and shaken his head, saying, “It is my father.”

  “How can you know?”

  “The gods told me as I lay awake last night with my belly rumbling from half-cooked pig meat.” But the truth was that he could pick out his father riding a horse from a far distance because of his stiff right arm, which he liked to ease by thrusting it into the front of his tunic to hold it like a sling.

  Durstan grinned. “Did the gods tell you how he would find us and why?”

  “They had no need. He would read my mind and know we would never take the Lindinis road. Each day it has rained and the tracks of two horses and a hound have given him our line.”

  They stood at their horses’heads as Baradoc rode up to them. When he halted, Arturo gave him greeting and Baradoc acknowledged it, grim-faced, with a nod. He said, “For two who have a blood price on their heads in all the lands of Prince Gerontius and Count Ambrosius, you travel leisurely.”

  “A man without destination has no need of hurry, my good father. That there should be a blood price is unjust for arms were drawn against us and we had the right to protect ourselves.”

  “I am here for no dispute. The warrant runs for three years. If you are alive then you are free of the now forbidden lands.”

  His face tightening with sudden stubbornness, Arturo said, “We are free of them now if we care to take the risk. There are many who live so … aye, both Saxon and British.”

  “I give you no counsel but this. To live you will need companions. Pick them well for the blood price is high and a temptation. Your mother’s heart sorrows for you. Mine knows only stiffness. The Prince from some fancy of his own sends this.” Baradoc tossed a cloth-wrapped bundle to Arturo. “At the end of the three years there is no pardon unless you return it, so guard it well.”

  Arturo loosened the cloth and took from it the silver chalice. Then, seized by pride and deep anger, he said with deliberate contempt, “Your Prince, my father, is a man of windy fancies and little action. He plays at war with his horses and men but sweats with fear at the thought of a wound. For him even the quick buzz of a wasp is too like the feathered hiss of an arrow for comfort. Against him pompous Ambrosius is Mars himself. So speak thus to him from me—for the gods have said so—that one day he will sue me to return. Aye, the day will come when this country will cry for Arturo and his voice and that of Ambrosius shall not be the least among them in clamour.”

  For a moment or two Baradoc said nothing. Emotion played within him like summer lightning. Anger, despair and bewilderment and the faint flicker of pride possessed him. There was a madness, he felt, in Arturo that made him stranger, not son. Then, in a weary voice, Baradoc said, “If I live to see the day that Gerontius or Ambrosius sues for your return, then I shall have lived into the age of miracles. Yet, because you are my son, I pray the gods to bring you to reason.” With a jerk at the reins with his left hand Baradoc wheeled his horse away and called over his shoulder, “Until today I had two sons. Now I have only one.”

  Arturo said nothing. He watched as his father rode away to join his companions on the trackway and they turned and put their horses to a steady trot, and he watched still, his face grim, until they disappeared over the smooth shoulder of the chalk downs. He knew quite clearly that he had been boastful, arrogant and vain with his father and there was not pleasure in him from it. He knew, too, that the warrants of outlawry would make life hard and dangerous for him and Durstan. But there was no turning back now. He was in the hands of the gods, who would show him no favours unless they saw him proving himself… Aie, and maybe then not give their help too readily at first for they knew too well that the early spring of courage could be the false growth of anger and pride. For a moment, as brief as the flick of an eyelid, he wished he were safely back in Isca, dust and dung and horseflesh smells about him as he rode to exercise or drill. Then the wish was gone, leaving a dying ripple on his mind like the fading water ring where a swallow stoops its breast to the stream in swift flight.

  Behind him Durstan said quietly, “And did the gods truly say that one day our lords of the west would sue for your return?”

  Arturo turned, smiling, and shook his head. “No. But they will.”

  They turned their horses’heads northward, moving toward the distant sanctuary of the forest and marshlands about the headwaters and upper valley of the River Tamesis, a lawless land between the Saxon east and the sprawling enclaves of the west, a land of low-caste men of both sides who tilled their patches, tended their cattle and when times or seasons grew bare took to plundering their neighbors.

  As the light began to pale in the western sky they came over a smooth curve of the downs and saw before them the great ring of standing henge stones which men called the Circle of the Gods. They came to it unexpectedly for neither of them knew this country except by repute, but Arturo recognized the place at once from his mother’s stories of the great journey she and his father had made over twenty years ago, when the country had been torn with civil strife following the ravaging westward movement of the Saxon armies.

  They spread their pack blankets and made camp outside the circle and ate what remained of their cold pig meat. They lit no fire, for the night was mild and they had nothing to cook and no desire to draw attention to themselves. Lying on his back, staring up at the brightening pageant of the stars, Arturo found it strange that he should be here where all those years ago his mother and father, not so old then as he was now, had made a shelter and slept. A little way from him Durstan lay with his head cushioned on Anga’s flank and played on the small elder-wood pipe he always carried with him the slow, lazy tune of a stableyard song. He broke off as Arturo suddenly stood up and began to rummage in the loose pack at his side.

  Arturo took the silver chalice from the pack and then drew his dagger from his belt. When Durstan raised an eyebrow questioningly he said, “Where we go and what we do—how long should we keep a silver bowl safe?”

  “There are those who would slaughter a handful of homesteaders for it. Aye, or murder their mothers, fathers and brothers.”

  “This place is under the protection of the gods. Come.”

  Durstan rose to his feet and, followed by Anga, they moved between two of the great cross-lintelled henges into the circle. At the foot of one of the great stones, against whose side a fallen lintel leant half-propped, Arturo buried the chalice, cutting a square of turf clean from the chalky soil and then digging the hol
e deep with his dagger and hands. When he had finished and stamped the turf back into place Durstan said, “The gods have it in their keeping. Would that they could name to us the day of its recovery.”

  “No matter the day. It will come in good time. I ask the gods only that on the day we shall both be together.”

  Arturo looked up into the star-scattered sky and Durstan smiled to himself, knowing that his companion looked for a sign from the gods of their approval. Aie, he thought, the smallest of shooting stars would do, or the slow drift over the stones of a pale-winged owl, that bird of omens. For his friend’s comfort of mind he hoped that chance would favour him. But there was no open sign from the gods.

  6. The Villa Of The Three Nymphs

  From the circle of the Gods the two went northeastward, travelling slowly, following the line of the old road to Cunetio. The town, lying on the far slope above a tributary of the River Tamesis, was largely in ruins, and almost uninhabited. Only a handful of old people existed miserably among the abandoned and despoiled houses.

  As they left the town and began to climb the slopes of the downs beyond it on a line which would take them to the River Tamesis, Arturo fell into a silent mood, riding ahead of Durstan with Anga at his horse’s heels.

  So they rode for a long time while the midday sun began to slide down the sky. Then, as they crested the long curving shoulder of the downs, Arturo pulled up his horse and waited for Durstan to come up with him. Without a word he pointed to the valley below, where from a clump of thorn trees a billowing of thick black smoke rose into the air. Some of the land around the trees had been cleared and was now bright with the green of growing crops. As they watched, an old man came stumbling and running from the thorns pursued by another man, who in a few paces overtook and felled him with one sweep of the sword he carried. The old man screamed and the noise carried faintly to them on the wind. Then the noise was gone as the swordsman thrust his blade in his victim’s throat.

  Arturo said, “To help others in trouble is the best way to forget one’s own. Come.”

  He drew his sword and began to ride fast down the valley side, and Durstan followed him. The swordsman below saw them coming and ran back into the thorn trees. With Anga racing at their heels the two swept down to the trees and, dividing, went one round each side of them to come galloping into a small hollow in which flames and smoke roared up from the burning of a brush-thatched hut. Beyond the hut two men, with their backs against a small cart, were fighting off the attack of four other men, using spears against the swords of their attackers.

  As Arturo and Durstan rode into the fight from either flank the men turned to face them. They were Saxon outcasts, wearing sheepskin tunics and short trews and armed with scramasax swords and daggers. As Arturo bore down on his man, the Saxon began to run in quickly, hoping to get under Arturo’s sword and find a way to take him in the groin. Arturo wheeled away to escape the threat and flat-bladed him with a backhand sweep that sent him to the ground. One of the men who were being attacked jumped forward and thrust his spear into the man’s heart. Another Saxon ran at Arturo, seeking to chop at the horse’s forelegs to unseat him, but this time, anticipating the move, Arturo levelled his sword at the man’s throat, riding hard down on him until the man was almost under his guard, and then, thrusting the sword point into his throat, sent the man toppling, screaming in a strangled death agony.

  In a few moments the whole affray was over. Two of the Saxons lay dead on the ground and the others were racing fleet-footed up the downside, choosing the steepest scarp where the horses would have been hard put to follow them. Arturo watched them go, but his attention was less on them than on the significant and always to be remembered fact that he had killed his first Saxon.

  From behind him a voice said, “The good Lord give you thanks for coming to our help.”

  Arturo turned in time to see the man, one of the two whom they had rescued, cross himself and knew that he was one of the Christos followers. He was a young man, lightly bearded, wearing a long shirt whose ragged hem fell well below his knees. He had a pleasant, open face, the deep brown of his eyes the same colour as his long hair.

  Arturo said, “Who are you? And why do the Saxon men attack you while the crops are still in the ground?”

  “My name is Marcos. And this is my brother, Timo.” He nodded toward the other man, who was the shorter of the two and looked also the younger. He had the same hair and eyes as his brother, but his face was solemn and tight-lipped. Marcos went on, “He, too, would thank you, but he has no speech though he understands all that is said.” At this Timo nodded though his face remained unchanged. “As for the Saxons … there is one crop they can gather all the year round. They came to take us for slaves. Many of our kind have been taken down the river and sold to the people of King Hengist. They need slaves since for the barbarians the only work worthy of a man is fighting.”

  Arturo looked at the now smouldering remains of the thatched hut. “This is your home?”

  The lips twisted ruefully in the pleasant face. “Was.”

  “And the old man who lies dead beyond the thorn trees?”

  “Our father.”

  Arturo nodded and then said quietly, “We remain here tonight. Go bury him.”

  Marcos nodded and then turned to his brother and said, “Come.”

  Still sitting their horses, Arturo and Durstan watched the two brothers go to the rough cart to which a small, sturdy pony was yoked. They took a well-worn wooden spade, its blade iron-tipped, and an axe from the back of the cart and made their way to the thorn trees.

  As they disappeared Durstan said, “We have given our help. Why stay here tonight? The Saxons will not return.”

  For a moment or two Arturo said nothing. He watched a kestrel wind-hovering above the downside. It has been there when they had ridden down to attack the Saxons and it was still there. It was an inhabitant of another world than the world of men; and above and beyond the world of the kestrel was the world of the gods who marked and controlled all life … the movement of chance and time which had brought them to the aid of Marcos and Timo. But only men of small vision called it chance and time. Life was patterned more intricately than the interknotted serpentine designs of a jewel marker’s brooch and the gods ordained the pattern of men’s lives.

  He smiled suddenly and said, “These two are homeless and dispossessed. So are we. A single stick breaks in the hand easily. Bind ten together and they defy the strength of most men. They owe us their lives so they would never sell ours for a handful of blood money.”

  “True—but what can you offer them? This is their home. We have nothing.”

  Arturo smiled. “But we shall have, Durstan. If they agree we shall be four bound together … the gathering of strength begins. First men and then”—he nodded toward the dead Saxons—“their arms and their clothing, though the gods know it will take hard washing to clean the stink from it. And in the cart there I see tools, hoes and axes and home-steading gear. The pony, too, is young and well fed so they are no men to neglect their animals. With all this we need but a place to settle and soon others will come to us.”

  “And you will tell them who we are and why we are without any true state?”

  “Is there an enduring companionship and faith built on other than the truth?”

  Durstan smiled and shook his head. “And, so, in the end you will have a comitatus, a gathering of companions, that will grow into an army which will one day bring both Count Ambrosius and Prince Gerontius to sue for your help? You dream, Arto—but I like the dream.”

  “Everything in life begins as a dream. That is how the gods speak to us. First the dream and then the reality. Believe that and work for it and then the gods are on your side. Today I have killed my first Saxon. It is a day of portent. I should ignore it at my peril.”

  They ate that evening with the two brothers, who produced eggs, cheese, cabbages and two chickens from their cart, and a bronze cauldron for cooking with water that
came from the still running source of a winter bourne that flowed away down the valley from the edge of the thorn brake. When they were done Arturo spoke frankly to Marcos, first of the state in which he and Durstan found themselves and then of their need for comrades, of a great company of comrades which should eventually grow into a great army to be the envy and the awe of all men.

  At first, Durstan noticed, the two men were plain-faced, showing nothing of their feelings, but slowly the spell of Arturo’s words began to touch them. For the first time, too, Durstan found himself listening to an Arturo he had never heard before. Although he stayed quiet-voiced there slowly grew an enspelling magic about him. Never in all their time in Isca had he known this Arturo and never before had he found himself, as now, won over to the slow, powerful faith which Arturo had in his own god-favoured destiny …

  When Arturo had finished speaking, Marcos said, “Our father is dead and neither Timo nor I am married. Living here grows more dangerous for”—he nodded to the distant bodies of the dead Saxons—“more and more small parties of the men of the South Saxons come up the river valleys since they can find neither living space nor good plundering in their own kingdom. When you arrived our cart was loaded for we were going to abandon our young crops and move away. But where we move and whom we serve rests not with me. My brother and I are as one. I go nowhere nor accept any service unless we are together. For myself I would join you.” He looked at Timo and said, “You have heard the words of this Arturo. How do you find them?”

  For a moment or two Timo gave no response, but slowly the corners of his solemn mouth moved to a wry smile. Then suddenly his hands came to life, fingers touching palms, fingers playing against each other, and sometimes a hand flighting to make some expressive movement about his forehead, and all done so rapidly that to Durstan, watching, it seemed like a flight of two wide-winged birds steepling and playing together in some intricate courtship display. Then, abruptly, his hands collapsed and lay still on his knees.