Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS)

by John James

  ‘It will do me very nicely,’ I told them, making my voice sound as off-handedly evil as I could for Lhygod’s benefit. ‘First we will take this wretch up to the top, and then I want you to go to the village and find me three beams, strong enough to bear the weight of a … lad, and a hammer, and nails.’

  This they did, and Grathach, who only looked stupid, remembered the spade I had not mentioned, and also brought a chair for me to sit on.

  ‘What shall we do?’ he asked me in a loud voice, so that all the passers-by on the road, and all the people of the village of Arberth who had come out to watch, could hear. And I answered him in the same way:

  ‘Build me a gallows. Build it high and build it strong, that it may stand here for a hundred years to show what happens to those who steal Mannanan’s property. Dig holes into the hill, and set the uprights well into the soil. Nail the crossbar firmly so that it will not give, and throw the rope over. Then we will set the noose about this young rat’s neck and pull … pull … pull … slowly and watch him kick. But do not work too fast, because it would be a pity if there might be anyone who would have too little time to see the justice of Mannanan.’

  It was still only the middle of the morning. I looked about me as Nerthach and Duach took turns with the spade to sink the holes. To the east of us wound the Roman Road, and to the west of us, and in both directions it disappeared into the forest. To the north I could see the village of Arberth, and it was surrounded, I could see, by a circle of stones of the men of old, and another line of stones ran away to the east. But to the south, crossing me from left to right, I could see the line of the Green Road.

  It was when the lads had finished sinking the holes and we were about to put up the first post that I heard scuffling on the path, and the grunting and blowing of a man out of condition, almost drowning Lhygod’s sobs which grew louder as the holes were dug deeper. Then round the corner of the path the face of a man appeared and spiralled up to the top of the mound. He was a big, stocky man, very thick built indeed, with linen tunic and fine wool trousers, boots of Spanish leather, and a Gold chain around his neck. He looked the part of a merchant. He looked at the poles, and he looked at Lhygod, and he asked:

  ‘Why sir, what are you doing here? Why are you putting up these timbers on this mound?’

  ‘Simple enough it is,’ I replied. ‘Last night, I was walking hither and thither among my oatstacks, and necessary it was, because the mice have been at them lately. But of course when I came they all ran, and all I was able to catch was this one little mouse.’ For that is the meaning of Lhygod, which I took to be some kind of a pet name. ‘Therefore, I am going to hang this mouse by the neck till it be dead, for a warning to all the big rats of the Isle of the Mighty, and indeed of the Isle of the Blessed also, that I will have mercy on neither great nor small till what has been taken from me is returned.’

  ‘Oh, but come now,’ and his voice was smooth and silky as if he were trying to sell me something no sane man would take as a gift. ‘Surely vengeance like this is beneath a great lord like yourself. The death of so little a mouse will not help you. I have always wanted a little mouse to play with, as a pet. Come, sir, sell it to me for five pieces of Gold … or should I offer ten? It is only a whim of mine … Oh, yes, I can pay, I can pay, I am a trader of some repute in these parts.’

  ‘I will ask you something.’ Never, I thought, fight an enemy on his own ground. ‘If I take five Gold pieces, new minted and not yet clipped, and I buy a hundred amphorae of Gaulish wine, and I sell them for two hundred two-horse denarii, and with that I buy one thousand cheeses and I sell those for forty thousand copper sesterces, then have I made a profit or a loss?’

  ‘Now, if you will repeat that slowly,’ he stammered, ‘and let me send for my abacus and my tablets and let me inquire the price of cheese and how many sesterces there are in a sestertia—’

  ‘Any merchant carries all these things at his fingers’ ends, and would have answered me in a moment,’ I said sternly. ‘No merchant you.’

  And Nerthach and Duach took him by the shoulders and the ankles and rolled him down the sides of the mound, and he scrambled up on to the road and ran as fast as he could towards the wood from which he had come.

  Then the lads got the cross-beam up on to the gallows, and they made a great deal of fuss about it, banging away with the nails fit to wake the dead in the long grave mound I could see, and at every bang Lhygod sobbed the more. But when they had finished, a head appeared over the edge of the mound as a man strode up the spiral path as easily as if it were the level ground. He was dressed as an officer of an Auxiliary Regiment of Cavalry, in the German fashion, with his shirt tucked into his trousers and his trouser legs tapered to his boots. His breastplate was polished, and his helmet shone, with a yellow plume set crosswise. I wondered idly what regiment he thought he was in. Before I could ask him, he began to ask me, in a Latin thickened with an accent that might have been that of Friesia or Pannonia:

  ‘Now, sir!! What are you doing here? Do you not know that the administration of justice in this country is the task of Caesar’s officers? Are you indeed preparing to carry out a hanging? Hand your prisoner over to me at once!’

  I shifted my position in my chair so that the handle of my sword came before his eyes, and I answered him mildly enough:

  ‘I am merely ridding my land of vermin. Last night I was taking the air in the rickyard, hoping to catch the mice that have been eating up all my grain. But they saw me coming and ran away, and I was only able to catch this little one. Therefore I am setting up this high gallows, and here I will hang this mouse, as a warning to all the big rats within the Empire and outside it that I will have mercy neither on great nor small till what they have stolen is returned to me.’

  ‘A mouse, is it?’ he mused, twirling his moustache between finger and thumb, and I felt pity for a man whose chin had been so recently scraped clean. ‘Now, if, as I see, you have a large performing mouse, I would be glad to buy it as a regimental mascot. Expense is no object. I will reclaim it from the regimental funds. Will you take twenty Gold pieces … forty …?’

  ‘All right, German cavalryman,’ I answered him. ‘Tell me this – is the World Tree an oak, or an ash, or an elm?’

  He looked at me a moment in confusion.

  ‘Why,’ he stammered at last, ‘the most sacred tree of all must be an oak tree.’

  ‘You are no German Cavalryman,’ I told him, and Grathach and Duach took him by the shoulders and the ankles, and rolled him down the slope, and pelted him with lumps of chalk as he ran back into the woods from which he had come.

  It was now half-way through the afternoon. The men from the Confines of Hell threw the end of the rope over the cross-bar, and began to make a noose, trying it on Lhygod’s neck for size and remaking it several times because it was too large, or too small, or not tidy enough. And while they were laughing over this, the head of a man appeared as he walked slowly up the spiral path. And this was not a merchant nor a soldier, but a Druid. His clean-shaven face peered out from his white headcloth, and his white tunic brushed the ground before his feet. On his breast was a shrivelled leaf, which might have been mistletoe, and on his head was a wreath of oak-leaves, the ends of the twigs fresh broken and oozing sap, and the acorns, since it was mid-August, still unripe and green-cased. He came to me and he said:

  ‘What are you doing here, my son? If you wish to offer sacrifice, it is not for you to carry it out, and there is no law in this isle that allows you to hang an offering to the Gods. Let me have this man, so that at Beltain I may shut him in a basket and burn him alive.’

  ‘Why, this is no man,’ I told him, ‘but a little mouse. I was taking my ease last night in the rickyard, where the mice have been troublesome, but when they heard me coming they fled, all except this one, which I caught. And I propose to hang it from this high gallows, so that all this vermin, of this world and the world that is to come and the world of the Dead, shall know that I will have m
ercy on neither great nor small till all that I have lost is returned to me.’

  ‘Then if it is a mouse, my son,’ said the Druid, and I was full of admiration for a man who could talk thus so soon after his moustaches had been scraped from his upper lip, ‘I would indeed like to possess it, because it is foretold that when I die I shall be transmigrated into a mouse, and so it would be unworthy of me to allow anyone to kill what may, in time, become my own wife. Therefore, let me buy it from you as an act of piety, and though I have no money of my own, yet I am entrusted with certain funds to be disbursed in charity, and therefore I could offer you for this mouse sixty pieces of silver … of Gold … eight pieces of Gold …’

  ‘Druid!’ I spoke to him without reverence. ‘Tell me this. What is white and black, of the sky and not of the sky, of the earth and not of the earth?’

  He looked puzzled. Then he said, ‘I must have some time to consult my sacred books.’

  ‘You are no Druid,’ I told him, and Nerthach and Duach were ready to roll him down the slope again, but I merely said to them:

  ‘Pull!’

  With relish they began to take in the slack of the rope, but as the rope tightened Gwawl shouted in his proper voice:

  ‘Stop it! Stop!’

  We looked at him., He had thrown off the Druid’s robe, which was only a bed sheet he had stolen from the inn the night before, and he stood there in his black and white shirt, but clean-shaven now.

  ‘What is there I can give you for this mouse? Name anything you want, even to the half of my Kingdom.’

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘tell me who is this mouse.’

  ‘This is my wife,’ said Gwawl, ‘new married, and this was the only way I thought she could travel safely from her own Iceni across a land full of desperate men like yourself, and at the same time have my two men keep an eye on you. And treat her carefully, I beg of you, because she has just found out that she is pregnant.’

  ‘Then if you want her back,’ I told him, ‘you will have to pay for her, and sorry I would be to have to hang her, for I like her as well as any woman I ever met who did not speak a word to me.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ gasped Gwawl, sweating with worry. ‘I will exchange her for Rhiannon.’

  ‘And besides Rhiannon?’

  ‘Yes, then – you may have Taliesin too.’

  ‘And besides Taliesin?’

  ‘No, no: you cannot ask me to give up my real prize, my ancient enemy.’

  Grathach gave a playful tug at the rope, and the mouse stood on tiptoe, gurgling.

  ‘All right, then. I will send back Pryderi also.’

  ‘And besides Pryderi?’

  ‘What? Will you give me no profit at all from this night?’

  ‘None at all. Let us have back also Hueil and his four men, or their weight in Gold if they are dead, and our horses and all our baggage unrobbed and untouched.’

  ‘All that I will do, only let me have my little mousey back.’

  ‘And bring them before the sun is set, to the road below this mound. And then let us see you go, vowing not to molest us again on this journey, as we will not molest you.’

  And so we agreed.

  The Mere

  Chapter One

  How far from the Mound of Arberth to the Summer Country? Far enough, with five men wounded. Hueil had an arm broken, and his four comrades were hurt each in a different measure – this one had his jaw broken and most of his teeth knocked out, that one had been struck in the face with a burning log, and so on. Pryderi had merely been kicked many times in the ribs, so that he found it painful to ride far in a day. Taliesin had been tied up, no one daring to offer any more violence to a Druid, and indeed that violence had been enough.

  ‘For the first time in my life,’ he told us, ‘I regretted that the laws of my holy order forbid me to curse any man. But I did as well in my own way.’

  ‘How?’ we asked.

  ‘Why, I drew in the dust with my foot, and I told each man his fate, and how he would die. And there is not a man there who will not die a dreadful death, violent and horrible beyond belief.’

  Now whether he truly divined this or not I do not know, but I have no doubt that his prophecies will all come true, because there is no surer way to drive a man to court disaster than to foretell it for him. What we believe, happens.

  Rhiannon they had kept apart, and she told us that Gwawl had made sure that she was treated like a perfect lady. It would, of course, have been easy to trace her, had I let Duach go to fetch a band of men, by the hawk that hovered above her all the day.

  We moved along the old Green Roads, crossing the new stone roads of the Romans, but not using them. This was for ease, not for necessity: no troops march along the new roads any more, except once a year the Pioneers, replacing cobbles and clearing out the ditches, in case it should be ever necessary to hurry the legions down into the West again.

  We stayed in farms at night. The people knew that we were coming. These were big farms, set well apart, because the Britons live thus and not in villages. Often the farms would belong to nobles, who now lived all the year round in the County Town, like Calleva or Sulis. Of course, a noble would never now go near his farm, but he liked at least to think that he had a house in the country where he could, if he ever wanted to, entertain his important friends if he ever made any. And it was at least a good thing, ‘my house’ and ‘my estate’ and ‘my tenants’, to talk and exaggerate about.

  A number of these houses were quite comfortable, by provincial standards. Usually they had changed from a cluster of round huts into a series of straight-walled rooms, like the rest of mankind build, and the farmyard had changed into a paved courtyard. Sometimes the owners had gone as far as building the walls of stone, or even brick, and in a few cases they had put on a layer of plaster in the slim hope that some day they would find someone to come and paint them with some civilised scene. And in one case, the floor had been made ready in the dining-room in case the owner could ever afford to have a ready-made mosaic put down.

  Heating, of course, was still primitive, charcoal braziers set wherever it was convenient. Still, they were somewhere to stay, since the stewards or bailiffs or what you like to call them were always eager to take us in, and as far as I could see never charged a denarius, or complained about the bird droppings in the room where Rhiannon slept.

  We went west, and then south, and after that west again, to skirt the Lead Hills. You could, on clear days, make out the haze of smoke from the smelting furnaces at the mines. There were the nearest Roman soldiers, and not many of them: they would be little interested in the surrounding country, but would only be wondering how long it might be before they were relieved. And these men, and their lead, came and went by the new road, north of the Hills, that went through Sulis to Londinium.

  All the hills were quiet now. The Army had gone from village to village and from house to house a hundred times, in the few years after the conquest, and seized every sword and helmet and mail coat. The chariots, too, belonged to the nobles, and they had also been brought in. You never saw so much as a real shield now, not the stout lime-wood panels, three-layered, bronze-faced and iron-rimmed: only the flimsy painted leather screens that Rhiannon’s escort still carried. This was an old-fashioned area, but, even so, you never saw a Roman here either. Only, once every seven years or so, the surveyor came through, re-assessing for the wheat tax. Now he needed an escort. Otherwise, the peasants obeyed their lords as they had done before the conquest, or rather they obeyed their lords’ stewards, because their lords never came any more.

  Still, there was no need to go inviting trouble, in such a big party of ours, and that was why we travelled by the old Green Road, and spread out into small groups between farms, coming together for the night. We met few other travellers, and most of them were rather curious. We so often overtook or met single men with packhorses, two horses to a man, and each horse with two baskets, not big so they must have been heavy, or so I thought. What was st
riking was that always horse and man were black from head to foot: not black by nature which would have been understandable, but black with some dirt or other, grimed into white skin and brown hair beyond any hope of washing. The baskets were black, too. I took them for charcoal-burners, and I said so to Pryderi, one day. At this, he laughed, and the next time we met one of these men, he stopped and called him over.

  He was a short man, and close to you could see the sweat running channels in the dirt, and the hands and arms covered with the scars of labour filled with the black and looking blue underneath the skin. The man came to us, and we got down to talk, as is only polite, while he sat down, balancing himself delicately on the heels of his feet, and doubling the backs of his thighs against his calves, so that only his feet and not his back side touched the ground. It was the art of a man who works hard, and does not spend his strength unnecessarily on standing up.

  ‘Go on, ask him what it is he carries,’ said Pryderi. Hueil and Nerthach, riding ahead, reined back and waited for us. The Dirty Man looked at my blue clothes, and nodded to them, not to me, politely, but respectfully, as though granting through good will and not through obligation, some slight deference to a social superior. I asked him:

  ‘Is this charcoal?’

  ‘Charcoal? Wood coal? Would I be selling you the worn-out ashes of other men’s second-hand fires? No, this is earth coal, the best.’

  ‘Earth coal?’

  ‘Easy it is to be hearing, and understanding, and knowing, from your question, though it is very well you are speaking the language of the Gods, and only making a few mistakes in the grammar, and in the order of the tenses and in the mutations, and sometimes being indistinct in your appreciation of the fine gradations of meaning, that it is from far away and from foreign parts and from a distant land that you have come, and travelled, and ridden.’ He spoke in a thick accent that I could hardly follow, but he had that easy flow of language and wide vocabulary and subtle sense of rhythm which are common to all Britons. ‘No, it is not charcoal, it is the earth coal.’