Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS)

by John James

  ‘We do the work, as usual.’

  ‘We do, that. Have you noticed that they don’t use any money here in Ireland?’

  ‘No more they do,’ I agreed. ‘I suppose they do any trade they can by barter.’

  ‘Oh, no. They have a currency, of sorts. The smaller unit is a cow.’

  ‘And what is the larger? A dead elk?’

  ‘No. Four cows, one slave woman they say. I have a feeling that the Ulstermen intend a certain amount of inflation. And a debasement of the higher unit. By the time they finish, they hope to have a woman for two cows, and a horn of ale for two women.’

  There, I thought, you have the whole lack of system in Barbarian life exposed. To a Barbarian, a slave is something to use for pleasure. We in the Empire know that nothing a slave does is equal in quality to what a free man does, whether you are thinking of a mason or a miner or a sailor or a ploughman or a prostitute. Therefore they use slaves in ones or twos, in bed or kitchen. But we use slaves only in large groups, and only in tasks which no free man will do, which no freed man will continue in. And if there were anything better than the fickle, mischievous, unhealthy slave to give us the power we want to break stone or pull ploughs or build, then we would use it. But there is, and can be, nothing else in nature that will ever serve.

  It was the end of May when the King of the North arrived. He had taken his time, but now he came galloping into Tara in his chariot as if he were in a dreadful hurry to be enthroned as High King, or to finish his enthronement. And this, the people of Tara said, was wrong. By rights he ought to wait to the Feast of Tara at Samain to be enthroned, and to argue that his enthronement had begun at a Samain and been interrupted was surely better cause for waiting for Samain and starting again rather than finishing it out of season. And sure, had not the last three High Kings who had been enthroned out of season died a violent death? But, I reminded them, had the last forty-three kings not died a violent death, however and whenever enthroned? But, no, the people of Tara said, that was pure coincidence.

  And sure, they told me, was it not necessary for the High King to receive the sovereignty at the hands of a woman, and that the right woman, and was not the right woman missing and had she not shown clearly that there was no High Kingship she would be giving to Conchobar now, and was it not only his word alone that we had that she had ever given it to him? So there were some that agreed with the King of Ulster, that it was only necessary for him to carry out those ceremonies that had been omitted, and others said that there was nothing for it but to begin again from the beginning, and with this last party it was said that Cathbad held. As for Cathbad, some said that he thought thus because the Queen of the West had paid him, and others said it was because the part of the ceremony that would be taken as done was the bull sacrifice, and he wanted his fill of the beef, which otherwise he would be unable to taste.

  But the King of Ulster had his way, and the day after he arrived he was enthroned under the same blue sky, because there had been no rain since the day that we had marched to the battle across the mud of the horse pastures. I woke early and I climbed up with some other warriors on the top of the great mound, because I realised now that there would be no special treatment for me, whatever I was owed, unless I demanded it in some spectacular way, and I was not doing that while Cuchullain could in any way plead that he was bound by his overlord. The mound was a trifle far off to see everything in detail, but at least I got there. I saw the new High King ride up in his chariot, driving it himself, and showing his skill by passing so close to a standing stone that the felloe of the wheel scraped it and threw out sparks and yet the chariot did not overturn. But he did not do the other feat that was expected, driving his chariot between two other standing stones, because, some said, he had already done it once before, or because others said, he was afraid that the stones would catch him and crush him between them as they were supposed to do if anyone who was not by rights High King rode between them.

  The King dismounted then and went to the flat stone on which he was to be enthroned, and they brought the white mare that the smith’s wife had spoken of. I will not tell what happened then, because there are things a man may stomach to do in darkness in the rites of a mystery, but to do it in broad day in sight of ten thousand people as the High King must do – I will not speak of it. I will only say that I was sorry for the horse.

  After it was over, the King killed the mare with the slash of an iron knife across her throat. Then he went from his stone to the cooking fire outside the Wall of Tara, and from that he went twenty paces to the west. There he piled brushwood for a new fire, and returning to the standing stone he had ridden by he struck fire from it with his sword – and not really his own sword, but the sword with which by proxy he had won the High Kingdom, and with which his champion had cut off the old High King’s head – he struck more sparks to kindle timber, and that he carried back to light a new fire.

  They put three stones about the new fire, and on this a massive iron cauldron, and by the working of it I could see that this had been made in Britain and brought across the sea, though whether by trade or by theft I do not know: I think by theft. They had this full of boiling water already, or we might have waited all day for the next part of the ceremony. The King began to joint the mare, and of course other men helped after the first cut of the royal knife. They hacked her into gobbets which they dropped into the cauldron, and they boiled the meat for some little time. Then when the King and some of his more favoured warriors and nobles, like Cuchullain, had eaten a little, His Majesty threw the rest into the crowd, lump by lump, and the men fought for them.

  I did not join in this struggle, but Aristarchos did, and he came to me a little after licking his bloody fingers, because the flesh had not had time to be thoroughly cooked or even more than blanched on the surface. The riot merged with no further ceremonial into the feast in the Hall, to which neither he nor I nor any of the Gauls who came in the ship had been invited, and so we all went back to the smith’s house, and there we found a cauldron of our own, and in it we put one of the little pigs and a couple of hares and a calf that we happened to come on by accident when nobody was looking our way because they were so engrossed in a fight between two of the Gauls who made more than enough noise to cover us and get up an appetite of their own. The cauldron we boiled on the smithy fire, and at last had it well cooked. There was not enough to drink, though, till one of the Gauls went off and reconnoitred the kitchen, and came back laden with mead jars, good stuff intended for the High King’s own cup.

  We sat there outside the smithy, which was only a booth open at two sides, and ate and drank, and talked about the good times one could have in Britain, and about how kings who wanted to keep their thrones paid their debts, and how at least that was a lesson Caesar had learnt, and how profitable it must be to serve in the Praetorian Guard at the death of an Emperor, all that was what we were saying, when the people of the village of Tara began to join us, and we had to talk more carefully, though they all agreed with us. We were all beautifully, ecstatically depressed, a fine contrast to the chieftains in the hall, who were, by the sound of it, in the grip of a different kind of ecstasy. Suddenly there was a movement in the circle, and the songs died. Cathbad the Druid had sat down with us.

  I had never seen the Druid in all his splendour sit so near a smithy, or come so near meat cooked in a pot of iron. But this was no ordinary night, and this no ordinary place. He sat there in silence, and we all looked at him and waited to hear what he would say.

  We waited for Cathbad to say something, or to recite some poem that would give us, even in a Delphic form, his real thoughts, because there are limits to the things a Priest can say to an all-powerful King. But he just sat and watched us, and listened to the small talk that sprang up again, how this man had killed three great chieftains in the battle, and how that one might have done better if only a cursed useless chariot had not got in his way, and men compared the armlets and collars they had taken fro
m the enemies they had killed, and indeed this was what we had talked about every night for weeks now. Then all of a sudden Cathbad spoke, and spoke to me.

  ‘Mannanan, whether you stay within the plain of Tara and keep your life, or whether you go out of the plain, and risk it, is all one to me. But it will all end in tears, and it is your doing, but there is no blame at your door: it is fated.’

  And then, in the way Druids have, he was gone, and we did not see him again, that night or after.

  Chapter Six

  There was a whole week of feasting, and even on the day after the last feast there was still no one but myself who was both ready and eager to march into the South and West. You can fight a battle with a headache, but you cannot march a mile. But the day after that, the new High King rode north to safety in Ulster, and the Champion of Ulster led the army of Ulster out of Tara, to conquer the island for the High King, and to bring back for him cattle and women without number, and most important of all, among them the Queen of Connaught for his bed and her cattle for his table or for his stud.

  Cuchullain, then, led his army down to the river that was the southern boundary of the plain of Tara, and even in that country of no roads there were at least fords here and there, and the army had to come down to one ford and to one ford only. The chariots were at the head of the host, my chariots, all gilded and painted and set with gems, my chariots that I had brought in my ship, that I had bargained for and paid for, that I had broken a legate for, my chariots. And in the first chariot, with the head of the High King that was hanging by its hair from the pole, and other heads with it now, stood Cuchullain.

  The Champion did indeed make a fine sight. He wore his particolour hair long down his back, as a challenge to whoever should want to take his head. So, I remembered, did Pryderi wear his. This, I thought, is how Pryderi would like to ride, at the head of an army, sweeping a country bare of women and food and beasts, and it is only for preventing this that he has this hatred for Rome. Oh, yes, war is a fine thing for nobles and leaders, even in defeat; but for the defeated, or the weak on either side, there is little to be said for it, and if you can think what that little is, then tell me, because I cannot think what it is.

  Cuchullain now spurned the civilised luxury of a shirt. He wore only the long strip of saffron-coloured cloth wound round his body, held together by fine brooches of Gold and silver. This dress set off the muscles of his arm and back, rippling under the armlets and chains that he wore, of precious metals only; nothing so poor as bronze for him. The sword that had killed the High King he had given to Conchobar, and now he wore an old sword, brought down from the North, hidden away from the army of Connaught when it had tried to disarm the North as the Romans had disarmed all Britain. This was the oldest sword I had ever seen, a long chariot sword, double-edged for slashing, but this one pointed too. There was no ball to the pommel. Instead there spread out from the top of the hilt two wide horns of Gold, curling up like a new moon in the sky, and the tips of the horns studded with tiny chips of gems so that they glittered as the light came on them from all directions. And the bottom of the scabbard was likewise ornamented with horns, this time of gilded bronze for the harder wear as the chape bumped on the ground or the sides of the chariot, though it would be seldom that the sword would be worn except in the chariot. It was slung from a sword belt that went over his right shoulder, and was anchored to the garment he wore, but round his waist he wore a noble’s belt in the British fashion, a chain of bronze gilt that went round his body four or five times before it was caught by a clasp.

  Behind him came his army. You have seen a civilised army on the march, or at least you have seen soldiers, small detachments marching to join their station or stepping out proudly in a review. Are you thinking of those straight lines, dressed from the right, taking their step from the standard-bearer? You will conjure up those scarlet cloaks, all of a length, the line of shields held, however it breaks a man’s arm, all level topped. You will imagine the helmets, shining like so many suns, the legionaries’ topped with spike or knob according to regiment, the centurions proudly tossing their scarlet plumes of horsehair. The breastplates shine, scoured smooth with brick dust, and the faces are shaved close as if they too were scoured, and every neck cropped, and crown too, so that no hair shows outside the helmet. Those are the two things that you will remember, every man is alike, and every man is clean.

  That will not do for your picture of a Barbarian army, Irish or German. Every man is dressed differently, as he pleases, only that a fashion may run for a little through some clan or nation and give them at least a skim of likeness. The helmets they wear are of a hundred different kinds, knobbed or spiked or crested, round or pointed, with cheek-pieces or not, sometimes beaten out of one piece, sometimes built up of plates of metal on a cap of boiled leather, and whether it is of bronze or of iron is a matter of choice. Then some men will wear mail, and some do not, according to whether they have been lucky in war or in inheritance or in theft, and for cloaks they wear what length and colour they can catch. But you must not imagine this equipment as shining, because how can bronze shine when it is green with verdigris, or iron sparkle when it is pitted with rust? The cloaks hide their colours under dirt and grease, and every man wears his beard long for want of will to cut it, and his hair long as a challenge. And this army will not march in ranks, or in any order, but will push along in a great heaving crowd, every man only taking care that he is always near to his lord to recognise him.

  So Cuchullain rode at the head of this crowd of warriors, by the way I knew that he would come, and there at the ford I waited for him. And when he stopped there, all his men came up and crowded close to hear what I said, as I knew they would.

  Where the track came down to the ford, I had dug a hole. There was no need to seek out a standing stone of a burial mound: here was the boundary between the Plain of Tara and the rest of the Island of the Blessed, and every boundary is a place of mystery. Beside the road to the ford I had dug a hole, dug it with a stick sharpened in the fire. I dug the hole knee-deep before I was satisfied, and I heaped the earth on the south side, the unlucky side. I stood on the west side of the hole, and I barred the way to Cuchullain and his advancing army. He rode up to me in his chariot, and saw me there. The hood of my sealskin cloak was drawn over my face, but he knew me, and he knew too, and all his soldiers knew, why I held in my left hand a screaming black piglet, the runt of the litter, and in my right a knife roughly chipped of flint. Cuchullain saw the kicking squealing pig, and he stopped.

  ‘How then, Mannanan!’ he cried. ‘Have you not had enough blood?’ He gestured around. This was the way that the army of the West had fled, and the ground was covered with corpses. Some the wolves and the buzzards had torn: most had been stripped. Now the ribs showed through the rotting flesh, three weeks dead. The bellies had burst: there was a stench over everything. There was nobody whose duty it was to bury them. So they were not buried.

  ‘I do not drink blood,’ I replied loudly, so that all the host could hear me. ‘But I know those who do. Those Below, the thirsty ones, shall they be filled tonight?’ and I drew the blunt back of the stone knife across the piglet’s throat. Cuchullain looked long at me. He saw my hair plastered down with fat, and it might well have been corpse fat for all he knew, and stuck with the feathers of the black cock. One half of my face was blackened with the ash from the fire, and one painted scarlet with a dye I had with me. From my red cheek glared my one black eye, and from the black cheek shone the red of a ruby. And Cuchullain saw, and all his army saw, that the blood of the black pig would flow into the pit, and I would curse all his army and himself and deliver them to the Gods Below as I had delivered the High King. Cuchullain changed his tune, and asked what I wanted.

  ‘Pay your debts, Setanta, pay your debts!’ For he was still arrogant, with his army behind him. Now the battle was won there was no need for him to think that he could escape paying those that had won it for him. ‘Before you came here, b
efore I armed you, before I gave you your triumph and your kingdom, you promised me my pay. All the Gold in Ireland, all the Gold of all the mines, you promised me. You promised, Setanta, and you have not paid it yet. What have you promised the men behind you, and will you ever pay it? Pay me my Gold, Setanta, and then pay them!’

  He did not dare refuse me, or try to put it off, there in front of all his army who had heard it. There is nothing will make an army melt away as fast as the rumour that the pay chests are empty. If that happened, then indeed he would feast with the Gods Below. Every man watched him and watched me with my hand on my knife. Cuchullain turned to his host and called:

  ‘Who will go with this man into Leinster?’

  A big man came forward, and beneath the hair it was possible to recognise Callum that had pulled the skin boat with me. Now his face was painted and his hair stuck with feathers so that he would have drawn attention anywhere in Britain, where he had before been merely an unusually hairy and dirty man. Now, though, he could dress for what he was, the prince of a little kingdom somewhere far away, and with him he brought his own kinsmen, perhaps five hundred of them, and almost every man of them had joined us on that first day. There was little enough attention he had had from the High King, though, for all that, or from the Champion till now.

  ‘Callum the Hairy,’ Cuchullain addressed him. ‘Ravage Wicklow, and take Mannanan to the Rivers of Gold.’

  I stood beside Callum, and we watched the host of Ulster pass, great crowds of ragged hungry men, ill armed and ill tempered, even now, and looking not for excitement or for glory but for loot, only for loot. Only in the middle of them marched a dozen proud and fierce men, well armed, Heilyn and his Gauls. Close behind the leading chariot they strode, ready to keep each others’ back, or their leader’s back. And as they went, so I saw pass for the last time the Champion of Ulster.