Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS)

by John James

  The little boy was Mynydog’s only nephew, and the King was very fond of him, as indeed everyone was in Eiddin. You would have expected him to be quite spoiled, but in spite of all the fuss and petting he was still the most loving and patient child you ever heard of. Perhaps it was his sweet and equable temper and his feelings for justice, even at that age. Of course, he had his favourites, and I, once, had been one. He was sitting on his little stool at the foot of the throne, as he had already started to do the year before. He was very good, for only four, an age when it is a penance to sit still for any time at all. But still he sat, his palms on his knees, and listened to every case.

  I came forward then, towards the foot of the mound, and I did not know if Cynon had been as free with his tongue as in Dumbarton, or if Precent had listened to what I told him. You could never keep Precent quiet in the old days. I did not know if I were expected or unexpected, a surprise to the King or one awaited and prepared for. I never found that out. As soon as I came to the front of the crowd, it was the little boy who saw me and remembered me. Yes, at four years old, after a whole year, and that is a very long time in a child’s life, a quarter of it, he remembered me, and that shows how marvellous he was, even as a child. He stood up and shouted, ‘’neirin! ’neirin! Look what I got! I got a sword, a real sword. Arthgi made it.’

  And it was a real sword, only of wood, of course, just right for his size, and Arthgi had taken some care in the carving and in making the little scabbard of leather that the child was so proud to wear at his belt. He waved it at me, and the whole crowd turned to look at me, the King and all his Officers. I stood there silent, and they too were all silent, and even the little boy stopped shouting, and looked about him guiltily for a moment as if he had done something to be blamed for, although that would have been impossible for him in Eiddin, even when he was little. And still is. But the silence was only for a moment.

  Mynydog rose from his throne and came down the Mound of Judgement. I know that you will say that it is not much for a Poet to boast about, that a King embraced him; rather, it is for a King to boast that a Poet allowed his embraces. A King’s embrace is not an honour: it is what you expect if you have a mastery of language and can make songs and satires and hymns of praise, and if you can hold in your tongue the fame of every man you meet, and can determine how even the greatest king will be remembered. By the Poets who sat in his Hall is a King’s greatness judged. Mynydog was a great King, great as Vortigern the Wise. Even Arthur will depend on the Poets to be remembered.

  But for Mynydog to embrace me was different. We embraced, as two men, one old, one young, as two close, too close kinsmen. Whatever had happened, it was meaningless compared to the bonds that held us together, that still drew us together till he died, whenever he died, because I never knew. Or how.

  ‘Welcome again, Bard of the Island of the Mighty,’ was what he said. I answered, ‘I am no longer a Poet’.

  I did not have to talk to him as simply as I did to Evrog, explaining or hiding things that could not easily be explained. Mynydog was wiser than his own Judge and cleverer than his own Fool, and he could foretell the future better than his own Astronomer, and he could do that as well by firelight as by starlight, and as well in daylight as in the dark. He knew what I meant. He did not need to be persuaded. He only repeated, ‘Welcome, well come again into Eiddin, Aneirin of the Gododdin.’ He looked round at his people. He asked, as always at the end of the hour of Judgement, ‘Is there peace?’

  We all answered, ‘There is peace.’

  Mynydog sheathed the sword of the House. Gwanar, as always at Clydno’s elbow, his axe in his belt, raised his trumpet and blew the horn for the ending of the court. The people who had come to seek justice or to see justice done to others went back each to his own village in Eiddin or Alban or the edge of Mordei. They would have justice. With Mynydog to proclaim the law, and Clydno to tell it, and Gwanar to execute it, there was always justice in Eiddin. Mynydog with his left hand took my arm, and the little boy, shy now, sensing only that something had happened to mar the happiness of those whose only care for most of his life had been for his happiness from minute to minute, he put his hand into my other hand and pressed himself close to my thigh, rubbing against me as we walked like a cat.

  In silence we walked to the gate of the Dun, and nobles of the Court walked behind. Just before the Gate they broke off, and went to their own houses within the Dun or outside it. I thought, soon, in a moment, in the courtyard beyond the gate or in the doorway of the Hall, I will see Bradwen. Then I will be well come indeed. Once I see her, it will all be over and my journey will be at an end. She will heal everything. But I did not know that my journey was already to Cattraeth, and there would be no returning. For the King stopped in the gate and said, ‘Let us wait here. Someone is coming up the Hill whom you must meet.’

  I looked towards the village. The Horsemen were dismounting in the farmyard and breaking into little knots, unsaddling their horses and rubbing them down with handfuls of grass and throwing blankets over them. That I could guess, even though I could see only a little at that distance. My sight was keener then than it is now. Only one man out of all that host was riding between the houses now. We waited for him.

  This then must be the man Mynydog had chosen out of all the men he knew to lead his army into the Mordei, and farther South. Who was it? Who was the man whom Precent had refused to name? Who had been chosen before Precent to be Captain of the Household of Eiddin, whom Precent was willing to follow? No one, I was sure, out of the Kingdom of the Gododdin. But from farther away? Who could have come to Eiddin across the lands and seas that the Savages and the Irish ravaged? Were there heroes from among the South Britons, or from the other Romans of Gaul and Italy, of whom I had not heard? I waited and I watched. Mynydog and I did not speak. We knew each other too well. We stood, and half my mind was on the scene before me, and half was on Bradwen, and surer and surer was I that when I saw her, it would make all well.

  The rider came nearer, walking his weary beast up the slope, his greyhounds trotting behind. And then, when he dismounted and let a groom take horse and dogs, I saw the Ravens on his shield and I knew, before Mynydog said, ‘Now we see the long awaited meeting, between the two greatest men of all the Isle of Britain, between Aneirin the Pre-eminent Bard, and Owain, son of Mark.’

  Yes, this was Owain, King Mark of Cornwall’s son, Tristram’s brother. There has been trouble there, and it would not have happened had not Owain come to Eiddin, to ride with us all to Cattraeth. But Owain had come North, flaunting his Ravens, at Mynydog’s call, as if they alone would clear the Savages out of the Eastern coasts, and peck the Loegrians clear out of the Island. (Ravens we said they were. He said no, they were a smaller bird, a chough, that lives in the sea-cliffs of Cornwall, but they looked like Ravens to us, and the Ravens we called them always.)

  It was this Raven flag and this Raven shield that men would follow: they had all heard of them. Oh, I thought, this is a shrewd move, to bring in from outside this man to lead us, the men of Eiddin, mingled as we were already with men from other kingdoms of the North, and with men dispossessed from lands south of the Wall. There would be no favourites, with this foreigner to lead us, a man of blood as good as any among us, and better. To lead us, I asked myself? No, to lead them. My business was not with Owain, but with Bradwen.

  A big man, Owain, seventeen hands high and a half. You will not find his match for strength today among the nobles who follow Arthur. It would have been no trouble for Owain to have killed Bladulf – he could have done it in his sleep. It would have been no trouble for Owain to have killed a thousand Savages, if he had met them in fair fight. They could never have overcome him except by treachery. No, not Owain.

  But it was not strength alone that drew us to Owain. Handsome he was, more handsome than any man who has ever lived. I have never seen Arthur in his manhood, but I am sure he is never as handsome as Owain. Corn was the colour of his hair, corn with the touch
of gold that gives it life, not the dull yellow tow of the Savages. And his eyes were of that ice-blue, cold and flaming by turns. Only to look into his eyes while he spoke, and it was no trouble to believe what he said, if he told you that black was white, and no danger to obey him though he told you to leap into a blazing fire. And it was that he had us do in the end, and worse: and gladly we did it. It was his beauty that struck me in that moment of meeting, and his strength, as he ran the last furlong of the way to us, uphill, and in his mail faster than many a man can run fresh and unladen on level ground.

  He knew of me too. He had heard my verses often, and I had heard his praises sung. He looked me in the eye as he heard my name, and I knew what he thought. He asked himself if I were more than a witless minstrel who can string words together for a bed or a meal, but can no more understand the real meaning of the line he sings or guess what the sounds rouse in his hearers’ souls than the smith can swing the sword he forges or feel the terror that comes to the beaten warrior who sees the iron shear down at him for the last time.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. He made no ceremony of greeting. Kings in the South are different, I suppose, or at least their sons are. ‘Are you come to fight, or are you only going to sing about us who do?’

  I refused to be riled, or drawn into a false move.

  ‘I have come here to decide how to spend a spoilt life.’

  ‘There is no better way to forget that than in spoiling other lives,’ he told me. It is easy to speak like that if you do not know the meaning of spoiling. In any case, I thought, I will soon see Bradwen. Then there will be no more talk of spoilt lives. Then my life will be complete again. The nearer I came to meeting her, the plainer it was for me to see, that all the strange thoughts I had in those days, of being a Judge in the North the rest of my days, or of going down south to my father’s people, or into Ireland to my mother’s family or farther still into Little Britain or Gaul, or into Africa, anywhere I was not known, or even, the maddest thought of all, going on this campaign, or any campaign – these were all empty air and froth. Bradwen would take me to her and comfort me, and make me whole again. With Bradwen nothing changed. I was so near her, she so near me, and yet I had for form’s sake to stand here and fence in words with this big foreign man.

  ‘There have been lives enough spoilt already,’ I said. ‘For most of them, there is no asking anybody now to repair the damage. Not all the wars that you can wage in a lifetime will put one head back again on its shoulders once levelled or make one maimed body fruitful. You may lead your army where you will, there will be no end to blood. Why don’t you live out your own life in peace on some cliff-top farm and be thankful that you yourself have not suffered.’

  ‘And that from you, Aneirin?’ He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘You’ve got more cause for vengeance than any man alive. I offer you the chance to shed blood for blood and chain men who chained you. How delightful it will be when we lead Bladulf through the gates of Eiddin with his hands tied behind his back! When we do that, he will be the last Savage left alive in the Isle of Britain. Then we can put all our strength against the real enemy – the Irish. But what shall we do with Bladulf when we catch him? Shall we blind him and set him to grind oat-flour for the rest of his days to spare women’s hands? Shall we set him loose on the sea in a boat to die of thirst? Shall we sink him to his neck in a manure heap to cook to death? You shall choose, Aneirin. It’s only fair, you have suffered more from the Savages than any man alive. How they must have rejoiced to have the Pre-eminent Chief Bard of all the Island in their hands—’

  ‘It made no difference,’ I corrected him. ‘They had no Poets, and certainly would take no notice of them if they had. They aren’t like us. For us poetry is the whole reason why men live. Not for them. Besides, they don’t know one Briton from another. I was nothing more than another pair of arms and legs that might have their uses on the farm.’

  What uses, I did not tell him. It would have been too shameful, there in the open gate. Besides, he knew it without my telling. I could see it in his eyes, so full of pity and of angry pride that such a poet should have lived in our nation.

  I did not tell him that they had shackled me to the ploughbeam with the ox, and whipped me to break up the stubborn land – our land. With the ox I had pulled the heavy cart of stones picked from the cornfield. With the ox, loaded and goaded, I had walked the weary round to tread the wheat from the ear. And if Precent had not come, then I would have ended up like the old ox, they would have killed me at the end of the summer, and on the night of the Holy Souls they would have fed my worn-out body to the dogs. Was there anyone here who knew the whole truth of it, the truth I would not be even able to tell Bradwen?

  There was nobody who could know, and yet, I felt, Owain did know. That was how he led us. He could always make it plain that he knew how you suffered and how you felt, whoever you were, whatever you had been. A man like that you can follow and feel no shame, even if you are as noble as he is, and though you know that you can surpass him in a dozen ways. And there was no way in which any of us could surpass Owain.

  ‘That is all I ask of you,’ he answered. ‘All I need is another pair of arms and legs to ride with me into the South. Another pair of thighs to grip a horse, and another right arm to cast a spear, and another head to wear a helm. Look, I have had all our helmets set with red feathers, as great generals did in the days of the Legions.’

  He was like any soldier, he thought that things of this kind, red feathers and shining helmets were important. And yet, though I knew this was all nonsense, for a moment I wavered, I was on the point of saying yes. I almost answered, ‘Yes, I will come with you as a soldier against the Savages, I will add another head of red plumes for the Savages to count. I will do this even though I know that I will be cutting myself off for ever from the company of the Bards of the Island, that by delivering the stroke of Justice I disqualify myself for ever from Judgement.’

  I was on the very point of saying all that, and of a sudden I thought of Bradwen, and I knew I could not go. She would never have me go, she would never let me leave her, now I had come back to Eiddin. She would know what to think of all this talk of glory and revenge. Bradwen the Wise Maiden men called her; cool and clear-thinking she was. She would have made a good poet, if it were lawful for a woman to make verses. It is only emotion that stands between a woman and the Muse. Any man who can look at life clear and cold and bleak, as it is, and not be deceived by his own desires and fears, can be a poet. The rest is a mere matter of words and metres: the rest is only a game of sounds. So I replied to Owain instead. ‘There are plenty of heads in the lowlands, and in the mountains too, who would be glad to wear your pretty feathers. For every man Precent brought from Dumbarton, he turned back nine, because this one was too old, or this one too young, here a married man and here an only son, and there a man who limped but not enough to stop him doing a hard day’s work behind the plough or in a boat. Take them, Owain, hard men used to war, and they will help you more than a hundred poets.’

  I expected to hear him tell me they would not do because they were too valuable, but that my useless arm would stop a blow as well as any. In any army, there are only two or three men who kill the enemy, the rest cluster around to shield the champion from the blows of the enemy champions. But what Owain said now was, ‘Empty heads, Aneirin, empty heads. In such a campaign, as we go on, there is too much work for me to do myself. In a host like this, I will need a Judge, Aneirin, to tell the law and judge our disputes. You know all the laws of the Island, of every part of the land, and you can help me make this Household of Mynydog’s into one army.’

  ‘But Cynon is going with you, and he knows enough law for your purpose. He has learnt it from his father.’

  ‘If that were all the law I needed, I would not worry. I have Cynrig of Aeron with me, too, but I need more law than he knows.’

  This was something to hear. Cynrig was a prince of Aeron, but not heir to the Kingdom, because he was a
second son. Now, to be thought superior as a Judge to this Cardi man was something. Owain added, ‘But he cannot be my Judge, because when he came, first his elder brother Cynddelig followed, out of jealousy. And then the younger brother came, Cynrain, to keep the peace between them, and they do not thank him for it. And that, Aneirin, is why I need a wiser Judge than Cynon, and one whose reputation is wider.’

  That I could understand. But still I told him, ‘I do not think myself wise enough yet for that.’

  Owain did not try to rebut this argument, or any I ever used. He neither quarrelled with men, nor set up counter-arguments. Instead, he would always find another way to put his case. If only he had acted in war as he did in peace, and shown the same maturity in the face of steel!

  ‘These Savages you have up here in the East, they are a funny people. I’ve never met them before. I’ve had enough to do, fighting the Irish.’

  This was how he had got his reputation, at war with the Irish who came by sea all along the Western coasts. Down in Demetia, they had even begun to settle and till the soil and build villages, dispossessing the Romans they found living there, as the Savages had done in Bernicia and were trying to do in the debatable land of Mordei. It was the Irish who were the enemy in the land. Now Arthur has utterly destroyed the Savages, he must show his real quality by beating the Irish. If they are not stopped they will first conquer this land, and then cross the seas and bring all the Empire under their rule, as far as Byzantium.