by David Drake
"Lord Christ!" a Briton shouted. "It's not Conbran! The Saxon—"
The lamp fell to shatter on the rocky soil. Yellow light bloomed from the spreading oil like a beacon. The grave robbers were screaming, running, all but their harsh-voiced leader whose cheek crawled with a birthmark like a spider. Ceadwalla shouted another vain command, then turned to Mael. He carried a silver-chased spear which he raised to thrust.
Mael caught him across the bridge of the nose with the rim of the metal shield. The bones shattered like porcelain under a sledgehammer.
Ceadwalla's spear had a tubular socket and a blade as long as a man's forearm. The metal was iron or steel, but deeply incised and filled with silver. Mael hefted the weapon, then set it beside him as he fumbled with the dead Briton's sword belt.
There was a sound in the darkness, someone approaching. Mael tried to stare beyond the wavering circle which the oil flame illuminated. The belt buckle came loose. Mael rolled Ceadwalla's body aside. He tossed the ends of the freed belt around his own waist and snugged them before he rose. The shield was in his left hand and he balanced the spear on his right. The person coming toward him could be seen now. It was a man by his size, a big man porting an axe high so that its edge was a yellow crescent in the flames.
"Aye, come and be killed!" Mael shouted. He raised the long spear to hurl.
"Mael!" roared the figure. "It is you, you damn fool!" Starkad lowered his axe and bounded fully into the circle of light. He was not favoring his right leg. His arms opened to clasp his friend.
"Idiot!" Mael gasped as they pounded each others' backs. "You could see it was me, couldn't you? God knows I was so close to the fire that my bloody eyebrows were singeing."
Starkad took a step back, still clasping the Irishman's shoulders. "Oh, I could see you, all right," he agreed, "but—well, your mother wouldn't recognize you now at a glance."
Mael frowned. There was a dagger on the belt he had appropriated. The hilt was delicately jeweled and chased in gold. He was not surprised to find the blade had been silvered as well. It made a fair mirror, enough to test Starkad's statement. Mael's right cheek had been plowed with triple furrows. The blood that sheeted from those surface wounds had been runneled in turn by sweat. Far more blood had poured from the veins feeding the torn-off earlobe and the tuft of scalp that had been plucked out at the same time. That gore had splashed on Mael's shoulder and down the side of his armor.
"Oh, yes. . . ." the Irishman said. He touched the throbbing remnants of his ear, grimaced, and resheathed the dagger. "There're two things I still regret about this business," he stated deliberately, "and the first is that I killed this offal, this Ceadwalla—" he toed the dead Briton contemptuously—"instead of stunning him. I'd like very much to be able to drop him down into that barrow alive."
"Sure," Starkad agreed, "but with all the commotion we've set off up here, don't you think it's time we moved on?"
"Right, before moonrise for sure," Mael said. He picked up the weapons he had dropped. Pursued by memories, he led the way north down a track through the pine woods which had once been a metaled road serving the villa. "The other thing I regret is that we've got to get this gear back," the Irishman continued, shaking the spear and shield to identify them. "If we didn't have to do that, I think I'd take a chance and give those Saxon swine a better reason to remember me than some silly threat I shouted as they dropped me into their hole."
"Umm, you don't need to worry about that," the Dane said.
"Sure," Mael agreed, "I know. There's no worse waste of time and effort than worrying about revenge. And hell, they didn't do anything that my own people might not have done. If they'd run into the same sort of—problem, that is."
Starkad began to laugh quietly. Mael glanced back at him, but there was not enough light to catch the Dane's expression. "You're sounding like a woman," Starkad said through his chuckles. "I'm ashamed of you, Irishman."
"Well, what the hell do you want me to say, learned one?" Mael blazed back.
"I just meant I burned the village last night," Starkad said. "They were all drunk and sleeping. I found the place late and lay around outside till near dawn when somebody came out to piss. He told me what they'd been celebrating, and I . . . well, I got a little pissed myself. If I'd been smarter, I'd have kept one of them as a guide and saved myself a day of stumbling around these hills till I saw the lights up here. But I just wedged the doors of all the houses shut and set torches in their thatch."
"My god," Mael murmured. He had spoken truthfully about how like his own people those of Biarki's village were. Now it was his own family which his mind saw screaming in the flames, children in the arms of women with their hair afire—
But what would he have done himself to folk who had sacrificed Starkad, though they were his own kin? "Hey," he said at last, punching the Dane's armored chest, "you shouldn't take chances like that, you hear me?"
Starkad guffawed. "Oh, well," he said, "maybe some day you'll do something for me, do you think?"
They walked on, chuckling without speaking further. When they crossed a north-leading trail, they followed it abreast with linked arms until, deciding they had come far enough from the tomb site for reasonable safety, they bedded down in a beech copse.
* * *
There was leisure in the morning to sort matters out before moving on again. Mael's pack, along with his own shield and weapons, lay somewhere in the ash of Biarki's village. Fortunately, Gwedda had restocked the Dane's store before sending him off.
"How in the Dagda's name did you get here?" Mael asked between mouthfuls of cheese. "You were supposed to be off your foot for a week, and here you are."
"The evening after you left," Starkad explained, "Gwedda dropped the bowl of soup she was handing me. Her face went white as the grime would let it, and she said that I had to get to you as soon as I could. Seems she'd gotten a message. She also got some help—somehow—that let her fix my ankle when she couldn't have done it herself. She put her fingers on the swollen part and didn't say anything, and she wasn't looking at anything either, not that I could see. And the pain left right away, and the swelling started to go down." The Dane frowned in apology for his weakness. "It wasn't that it hurt, you know," he said. "It was just that I couldn't walk without falling on my ass again."
Mael was still thinking about an earlier comment. "Help," he repeated.
"Yeah. I didn't ask who, but I wouldn't be surprised if she had white hair and was waiting for you when we get back to the barracks," Starkad said.
The trophies they had come for, the shield and spear of Biargram, presented a problem when the friends examined them by daylight. The intaglios of the spear head appeared to be of silver, but they showed no tendency to tarnish. The symbols etched and filled there were surely meaningful, but they were part of no script with which Mael was familiar.
But whatever the characters meant, they were certain to arouse attention as the two men trekked back to the British lines. Starkad suddenly guffawed, thrusting the spear head down into a puddle and smearing the mud carefully over the metal. The result looked slovenly, but it would be ignored by everyone they passed.
The shield was more difficult to deal with. It was about the size of the one Mael normally carried, a four-foot circle. At some sixty pounds, the trophy was much heavier than most shields. The man for whom it had been made must have been impressive if he could carry it through the course of a long battle. The man who had forged it had been impressive, too—if a man had forged the shield. Biarki's claim for Wieland seemed less foolish now that Mael had seen the object. The facing was without doubt the most exceptional work of art the Irishman had ever laid eyes on. It was of metal, laid out in concentric circles, each with its individual subject chased in reliefs of the utmost delicacy. Where humans were carved, they were so real that they seemed to speak and sing. Mael stared at the center where the boss was formed by the Earth encircled by the sun and planets. He had an eerie feeling that were his eyes goo
d enough, he could even have seen men moving on the surface of the tiny world.
"Tyr's arm," Starkad muttered. "That damned thing'll shine a mile away. Mud'll just flake off a big surface like that when it dries, too." Without real hope, the Dane splashed muck across the shield anyway—and the two men watched in surprise as the dirt streamed away instantly, as if it were being hosed off under pressure. Not a fleck remained on the glistening metal.
"What would you say this was made of?" Mael asked suddenly, tapping the shield.
"The backing's hide, looks like oxhide," Starkad said. "The rest, well, from the weight it's got to be metal all through. Iron, I'd guess, for the core. And the facing's silver, gold, looks like copper and tin and—and Surtr knows what all else."
"Not much doubt about the gold, is there?" Mael agreed. "Nice soft gold." He touched one of the golden figures with his dagger point, then forced his full strength against it. The steel skidded away. The gold remained unmarked. Starkad shrugged.
"I'll sling it on my back and wear my cloak over it," the Irishman decided "Makes me look like a fool, binding my shield up where I can't get to it if there's trouble. But hell, I feel like a fool a lot of the time, anyway. Let's get moving."
To avoid trouble, Mael and Starkad went thirty miles due north before heading west, instead of going back directly the way they had come. There was no telling what they had stirred up behind them. Although the return was no less dangerous than going among the Saxons had been to begin with, they both felt lighthearted. The sun was bright, and they had already been successful. Intellectually they knew that neither fact improved their chances of a safe return, but subconsciously there was an attitude of arrogant triumph that carried the friends well through one Saxon patrol.
They met Cerdic's men around a bend obstructed by hedgerows. There was no chance to hide. Mael simply snarled to the leader of the Saxons that they were a Dane and an Irishman landed at Portsmouth and headed north to join Aelle. Behind him Starkad thumbed his axe edge and muttered audibly that he'd as soon play hack-skull with mop-brained Saxons as he would with the British. There were a dozen of the Saxons, housecarls of Cerdic, but they looked uneasily from one to another and back at the grim men they had stopped. Mael had washed off the blood and filth of the tomb. His cheek was still freshly scabbed, and pus oozed from the swollen remainder of his right ear. Starkad had never needed injuries to look like a troll.
After some hand-muffled communication among themselves, the patrol let Mael and Starkad continue. It was the only significant encounter the friends had until they came upon a group of Companion cavalry near Cirencester, commanded by the same officer who had seen them off a week and a half before. By that chance, entry into Arthur's Britain was a matter of hand-slapping congratulation instead of arrest for investigation. The ride back to Moridunum was brutal, but it was toward what was for the moment home to Mael and the Dane.
* * *
For most of the ride, Mael and Starkad straggled behind the courier whom they accompanied from Gloucester. Then Mael heeled his horse into a trot when he saw the guard post, the westernmost of the scattered structures of the villa. Starkad followed with less enthusiasm.
The pickets, bored with inaction, rose and began to peer toward the approaching riders. Then another figure stood beside the Companions, shorter than they by far. Her hair was a white fire in the breeze. Mael whooped and kicked his tired beast into a full gallop. Instead of reining up, he leaped from the saddle and plunged into the group of guardsmen. It was a technique which the Ard Ri's men were trained to use against hostile infantry when their horses could not be trusted to charge home. Surprised, the Companions did not react quickly enough to cut the newcomer apart. Mael came to a halt with his right leg braced against the wall of the guard post, Veleda in his arms, and a huge smile on his face. Witch and warrior kissed, oblivious of the half-drawn weapons of the startled men around them.
Veleda nuzzled the Irishman's ear, but instead of love the words she was whispering were, "Don't let anyone see what you brought back. You wouldn't be allowed to keep it."
Mael released her with a comfortable grin. The shield was still under his cloak, the spear head harmlessly mudstained. Mael had been a mercenary too long to flaunt extreme valuables. Circumstances change quickly. A wanderer with a golden sword hilt—or a silver shield—might find his skill of less interest to a lord than the goods he carried. With one hand, Mael unpinned his cloak and loosed the buckle of the shield strap beneath it. He offered both to Veleda as a package and its wrapping, saying, "You tie this to the saddle and mount my horse. I'll walk alongside."
"To the Leader," directed the captain of the guard. "Nobody comes in from the East without being taken to the Leader."
Escorted by two Companions who were by no means a guard of honor, Veleda, Mael, and the Dane went the half mile to the villa instead of forking off toward the barracks. Starkad, too, had dismounted, saying that he was not going to be on horseback if anybody had that choice. The transfer of the shield had gone unremarked. The camouflaged spear nodded innocently in the lance socket where it had ridden since Mael was issued a horse at Cirencester.
Arthur and Lancelot, Merlin, and several officers whom Mael knew only by appearance were drinking in the shade of the west portico of the building. Three tables had been set up in a squared-off U around which the captains reclined Roman-fashion. A score of servants and guards stood or squatted nearby. Mael unbelted his sword and handed it without comment to the guard who blocked his approach. Starkad scowled but followed suit with his axe. The discussion around the tables paused as the two men stepped into the hollow of the U, facing Arthur who lay alone at the center table.
The king set his cup down. He wiped his mouth and moustache with the back of his hand. "You returned, did you, Irishman?" he said in a voice half playful, half not. "That's a little surprising, isn't it?"
"That's bloody impossible if they'd tried to do what they said," snarled Lancelot from his position at the head of the right-hand table. "You're being played for a fool." The Gaul slurped down the rest of the drink in his cup and signaled peremptorily to a cupbearer for a refill.
"We were too late," Mael explained, speaking to Arthur and not his Master of Soldiers. Lancelot was wearing only an embroidered tunic and was unarmed, as were the other men at the table. There were, however, enough armed guards at hand to dice Starkad and Mael if the order were given. "Biargram had already died, so we just came back."
"Every word a lie," said Lancelot. The squat Briton beside him laid a restraining hand on the Gaul's ankle, but Lancelot kicked it away. "They went to carry word to Cerdic so he can plan to hit you—now. They came back because their oh-so-British traitor sent them to spy some more."
Arthur laughed. "Shall I have them both killed, then?" he asked.
Starkad growled. Mael clamped him by the elbow, taut as a lutestring himself. He was looking for the weapon handiest to seize if Arthur carried through with his whimsy. Merlin grinned, the only man relaxed in the sudden tension.
"Show him the spear, Mael, " Veleda called. "The one you stole from Ironhand's barrow!"
Mael turned. Lancelot was rising. Veleda stood beyond the pillars at the edge of the throng of guards. She was holding the spear toward the Irishman, butt-forward.
"No!" a Companion snarled, snatching the weapon away. Mael had made no attempt to take it. Arthur gestured. The guard, his eyes flashing sidelong toward Mael and Starkad, scuttled around the table and handed the spear to his Leader.
Arthur took it without speaking. He frowned at the mud-smeared head, then dipped a napkin in his cup and used it to rub the metal.
"We broke open the grave to make sure he was dead," Mael lied. "That's proof we were doing what we said—and didn't have time for anything more."
Merlin's face had lost its look of repose as he saw the spear being carried forward. He stood, leaning over Arthur's shoulder to get a closer look at the inlays as they were cleared. "Leader,'' the wizard breathed, re
aching out with his index finger to trace the markings, "I must have this. . . ."
Arthur twitched the metal away in irritation. "Don't be silly," he said. "There's nothing here for you." Mael, ready to protest if the spear were given to Merlin, eased. "It's a royal weapon," the king continued. "I'll keep it." Arthur looked up at Mael and Starkad, holding the spear by the balance. "You two can go back to your barracks now," the king said. "Be ready to march in the morning. We're going to teach my Saxon brother Aelle the lesson that Lindum is to remain a British city."
Mael licked his lips but did not try to claim the spear. He had seen the glitter in the king's eyes. Lancelot either missed that warning or was too drunk to care. The Gaul stood up, his anger so sharp that blood was spotting his face where tension had popped open the old scabs. He cried, "They're making a fool of you, I say, and everybody else knows it! You must nail them up, the both of them, or—"
"Must, Roman?" Arthur whispered, and there was suddenly no other sound in all the crowd. The king hurled the spear expertly, the motion smooth and backed by an arm as strong as that of any of his men. Lancelot moved at the same instant, tilting the heavy table up as he ducked his body into its shadow. The silvered spearhead smashed its full length through the parquetry, slamming the table back down onto all four legs The shaft stood quivering, an exclamation point between the king and his slowly straightening Master of Soldiers. No one else moved.
Arthur giggled. Turning to Mael and Starkad, he said, "I told you to leave, didn't I? We march in the morning." Then he looked back at Lancelot. "I think you'd better leave, too, Lancelot, and I'm for bed as well. We have a hard fight coming, and right now I seem to be too drunk to throw a spear straight."