It was only a short distance, and they were soon standing on the ground outside the king’s own dwelling. One man stood guard outside and he appeared confused by the sight of his captain approaching with the unexpected retinue.
“What’s happening, my lord?”
Gavo gestured for Bellicus and the rest to stop while he moved forward.
“We’ve captured the druid,” said the captain. “I’m here to give the king the good news.”
The guard’s confusion turned to embarrassment when he noticed Narina amongst the party gathered before him, and he placed a hand on Gavo’s sleeve, restraining the captain from entering the house.
“Maybe we should just, you know…shout for him?” He eyed Narina surreptitiously and Gavo understood his meaning only too well.
But he shrugged off the guard’s hand and, muttering to himself, shoved open the door and went inside. Everyone could hear the mumbled conversation as Gavo woke the king. The irritated, groggy tones of Coroticus combining with the captain’s low, steady voice and the dancing shadows cast by the torches outside the house to create an atmosphere that was tense and laden with portent.
Eventually Gavo reappeared, and the king followed shortly after. He must have had the presence of mind to throw on his tunic and sword-belt so he would appear before the men with some semblance of dignity, yet, even so, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was still inebriated from the night’s carousing.
When he saw Bellicus standing before him, his expression turned dark and he stepped out from the house, walking across to stop just before the druid, who noticed the white, naked body and face of a woman peering out from the shadows just inside the door.
“You came back,” Coroticus spat, as Gavo took up a position behind him, hand on his sword hilt.
“Why would I not?” the druid replied. “This is my home.”
“You have some nerve,” the king said in a low voice. “All these years, acting like my friend and closest advisor, when, all along you—”
“Lord King,” Gavo suddenly broke in and Coroticus turned to face him, features flushing red with anger at the interruption. Before he could reprimand him, the captain spoke again. “You told Bellicus he could return to Dun Breatann if he completed the mission you set him. He did so.”
Bellicus frowned. What was happening here? What mission? The only task Coroticus had set him was to kill Loarn mac Eirc, and that had been an abject failure.
“Are you king here, or am I, Gavo? Hold your tongue, or—”
“My lord.” Gavo spoke over the king again and some of the gathered soldiers began to murmur amongst themselves. Bellicus could detect a hint of excitement in their hushed tones and it saddened him. Did they really want to see their captain disciplined by Coroticus? It seemed poor entertainment to him, but Gavo was continuing to talk, and his words astonished the druid.
“Bellicus killed Loarn mac Eirc, as you commanded, Lord King. You must hold true to your word, and welcome him back within your household. That is the way of it – to do otherwise is to invite the wrath of the gods on us all.”
Again, the mutterings of the men, but now Bellicus realised they were agreeing with their captain. What was the man talking about though? Why was he telling the king he’d managed to kill Loarn? Was this some ploy of Gavo’s to save the druid and have things go back to normal? For now, he simply remained silent, hoping the gods would lead things to a satisfactory conclusion somehow.
“How dare you talk to me like that?” Coroticus demanded, and pointed to the open-mouthed guard still standing at the door of the royal house. “You. Arrest the captain and toss him in the prison along with the druid and the woman. I’ll deal with them in the morning, when I’ve got my wits about me.”
The king threw a final, angry glance at Gavo and the others gathered about, before turning and heading for his quarters again.
The door guard walked towards Gavo, but his step was slow and reluctant and, before he could reach the captain, three of the soldiers in the crowd moved to block his path. The guard halted and looked to the king who had noticed what was happening and appeared just as bemused as anyone else.
“Stand down, Sentica,” one of the three soldiers growled and Gavo turned to face the men behind him, confident he wouldn’t be arrested any time soon.
“You all know why we’re here,” he said and Bellicus finally understood that this had been planned in advance. Perhaps not this exact scenario, but some form of coup at least. It seemed Coroticus had finally pushed his people too far, yet Gavo, loyal Gavo, could not bring himself to simply stab the king in the back. He had to do things properly, and he faced the king once more now.
“My lord, we have all been loyal to you over the years, and none more than me. But your position has become untenable. The people see you as unfit to rule over us, and I call on you now to step down, and let Queen Narina take your place as monarch of Alt Clota.”
Bellicus felt like he was in some waking dream for, of all the things he imagined might happen one day, faithful Gavo demanding King Coroticus give up his throne was not one of them. It was surreal, and, turning to look at Narina, he could see she was just as stunned by the captain’s words. She opened her mouth to protest, no doubt to deny her suitability for the post, but the druid reached out and grasped her wrist, silencing her.
She might not want to rule Alt Clota, but this was their only way out of this situation, and it had to be followed through to the end. They could deal with the aftermath in the days to come.
Coroticus glared at the silent soldiers, but he knew they would not follow his orders if he once again demanded Gavo’s arrest. Instead, he turned and walked back inside his house, a move which surprised everyone and saw more than one loosen the swords in their sheaths warily. The king returned a moment later though, and all he had in his hand was a wine skin, which he upended into his mouth as he stood facing them again.
“What will you do if I refuse?” he demanded, glaring at Gavo.
“Please don’t,” was the low reply and Coroticus drained his wine and threw the empty container at the guard captain.
“If you think I’ll give up my throne without a fight, you can think again—”
Once more, Gavo broke in without letting the king finish and Bellicus was impressed with how the captain had guided this whole thing. It might have dragged on half the night and the men lost their early determination to see the thing through to the end if Coroticus had been allowed to talk and question their loyalty and sworn oaths to him. By taking charge, Gavo had steered them to this point, and now the captain had the king right where he wanted him.
“It is your right to fight for the throne, of course, my lord,” Gavo said.
“Come on then, you treasonous bastard,” Coroticus cried, drawing his sword and setting his feet defensively. The wine he’d downed had worked its magic, and confidence and vitality flowed through his veins now, if only temporarily. “Or is it my wife I’m to fight? I care little – you both fight like women anyway.”
“The Queen has the right to choose her own champion,” Gavo stated, to nods from the men at his back and a shrug from Coroticus.
Narina had, by now, understood what the captain was doing, and she looked up, meeting the gaze of the giant druid who towered over everyone else gathered there.
“I choose Bellicus as my champion.”
The druid opened his mouth to protest. To tell her he had an injury, and suggest she choose Gavo for this fight instead, but, before he could speak, he realised that to refuse the challenge would destroy the moment, and possibly his own reputation. What would he say? “Sorry, my queen, but I’ve got a sore shoulder, get someone else to fight”?
He looked at the soldiers, all eyeing him grimly, and some of them nodded encouragingly, willing him to beat the king and restore the old normality back to their lands.
He handed his staff to Narina, and drew Melltgwyn.
“How fitting,” Coroticus spat, rolling his head from side to
side and swinging his sword around as they faced off, loosening his muscles in preparation for the biggest fight of his life. “The man who took my family from me, now wants to take my crown as well.”
Bellicus heard confused murmurs from the watching guards and guessed the truth of Narina’s imprisonment hadn’t been publicly divulged. It made sense of course, the stories would make Coroticus seem like a fool, even if the reality of the situation hadn’t been like that at all. How did they get to this place, the druid wondered, when they had all been relatively happy just a couple of years ago?
The king came at him though, and he had to focus on the task at hand. Swinging his sword up, he parried Coroticus’s blow and moved to thrust Melltgwyn into his opponent’s belly, but his shoulder flared and he had to halt, crying out in pain. The white willow powder had helped, but he was still vulnerable.
Teeth gritted, he saw the king’s eyes narrow, then he smiled and came forward again and Bellicus knew his injury had been noted. He tried to call on the battle trance that had saved him so many times in the past but something, perhaps the willow powder, perhaps his own past friendship with the king, stopped it from taking over.
“Perhaps this won’t be as easy as my wife assumed,” Coroticus growled, raining blow after blow on the druid, who parried each one easily enough but found it impossible to mount any attacks of his own thanks to his reduced mobility.
“You have to beat him, Bel,” Gavo called out from the side. Apparently, the guard captain had misread the way things were going and assumed the druid was holding back from a sense of loyalty or friendship. “If you don’t, things will go badly for us all.”
“He’s right,” Coroticus said, stepping back and circling around to Bel’s left, injured side. “Once I’ve dealt with you, I’ll have to find some suitably nasty punishment for Narina and Gavo, traitors that they are!” He came in again, blade smashing against the druid’s with a clatter that echoed back from the walls and buildings of the fortress. The druid saw it coming and was able to bat each attack aside but, again, any time he moved to land a thrust or swing of his own, his shoulder protested, sending a line of fire along his arm and back, and now the soldiers began to mutter nervously.
They hadn’t expected things to go like this. Some of them were young, fairly recent recruits brought in to bolster Damnonii forces when Coroticus became more warlike towards the neighbouring peoples, but many were older. They had seen Bellicus fight, and they knew what he was capable of.
They could tell something was wrong but there was nothing anyone could do about it. The fate of the kingdom was in the lap of the gods now.
At last, unable to spin out of the way quickly enough, Coroticus’s blade caught the druid on the right bicep, neatly cutting through the dark robe and into the flesh. It was a deep wound and it hurt terribly, but Bellicus kept his sword up to ward off any further attacks. Injured on both sides of his body now, and losing blood, he knew he was in trouble and wondered if this was the gods way of punishing him for sleeping with Narina all those years ago.
No. They would not forsake him for something that was outside his control.
Coroticus grinned and mounted more attacks, but the urgency had gone from his swordplay as he sensed victory and didn’t want to make a foolish error just to hasten the end of the fight. All he had to do was keep the druid at bay until he collapsed from blood loss.
“Gavo, help him!” Narina suddenly shouted, drawing the eyes of the soldiers to her. “In the name of Taranis, man, if Coroticus wins we might as well jump over the wall into the Clota below!”
Gavo frowned but shook his head stolidly. “Sorry my lady. No man can interfere in a battle such as this.”
“No man?” Narina cried out in disbelief. “What about a woman then?”
Gavo shook his head and made a gesture to the guards behind the queen. They stepped forward and grasped her by the arms as her eyes widened in despair.
“I’m sorry,” Gavo said again, eyes flicking from the queen to the mortal battle that was ending so unexpectedly before them. “But the druid knows the old ways – the old traditions – must be observed.”
“Damn them,” Narina screamed, struggling ineffectually against her captors. “Damn you, you bastard! He’ll not stop with us, he’ll kill Catia too!” The fight suddenly went out of her and she bent her head, racked with sobs, unable or unwilling to watch, as Bellicus dropped to one knee then forced himself back up as Coroticus came on again. “No man can interfere,” she wept. “If only Cai or Eolas were here to help their master.”
The king heard her words and they halted his attack. He looked thoughtfully around, as if expecting the druid’s dogs to appear. “Where is Cai anyway?” he asked the druid.
There was no reply and, with a shrug, Coroticus attacked again, but this time his blows were faster and harder, spurred to end this once and for all by the thought of Cai perhaps magically appearing at Bel’s side. If the druid could get into the fortress, why not his dog too?
Bellicus cried out as he failed once more to properly dodge the edge of his opponent’s blade and this time it sliced along his hip, opening another bloody wound. This wasn’t as deep as the one on his bicep but, with less muscle to absorb the damage, Bellicus felt it even more keenly.
His head was spinning now from fatigue and blood loss, and he fell again onto one knee, wishing Duro would hear the commotion and bring Cai to help him. The druid wanted to cry out, to call for the faithful hound, but pride kept his mouth shut.
He would rather die than beg for help.
Coroticus pointed his sword at him. “You were the best of friends, Bel,” he said, and there was genuine sorrow in his voice as the battle-lust left him. “And that’s what hurts the most. That you, and her,” he nodded to the queen who had pulled herself together and glared back at her husband now, face streaked with tears but upright and proud, “could betray me as you did.”
He looked around at the audience of guardsmen and shook his head bitterly. “I will overlook your part in this night’s disgraceful work,” he said, for he had no other choice. Threatening the men would only lead them to cut him down. Letting them live, after the gods had favoured him over Bellicus, would hopefully buy some loyalty which, he hadn’t fully realised until today, was so lacking.
The druid sighed and fell onto the grass, a dazed look on his normally confident features.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” Coroticus demanded as he stepped forward to loom over Bellicus. “I wouldn’t expect you to beg for your life, not you. I don’t think I’d want you to either.” He shrugged and placed his right leg behind him as he drew his sword up over his head. The strong drink was finally taking its toll and he wanted to get this over with. “I sentence you to death, Bellicus. Your gods have forsaken you and recognised my right to rule. May Taranis take you!”
His blade glinted in the torchlight as it reached the height of its swing.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Another voice broke the night air.
“Father!”
The small figure of the princess appeared from within the king’s roundhouse, and, nimbly evading the grasping arms of the door guard, Catia sprinted towards the combatants.
The shock of her high voice startled Coroticus and he turned, fury on his face, to upbraid the girl for disturbing him during such a momentous event.
Bellicus saw the girl from the corner of his eye and he mouthed a prayer to Lug, to momentarily blind her so she didn’t have to see what was about to happen.
There was no flash of light or other divine intervention though, as the shattered druid gathered what remained of his strength and thrust the tip of Melltgwyn up, forcing the blade deep into Coroticus’s belly.
Screaming in agony, the king fell forward, on top of Bellicus who had no strength left to roll out of the way, and the pair collapsed in a heap on the ground as Catia was finally intercepted by one of the soldiers, her terrified cries mingling with those of the fallen men and the shoc
ked queen to create an atmosphere of pure horror on the summit of Dun Breatann.
For a long time, no-one moved and the cries dropped in volume, and then another new voice broke the strange, momentary calm.
“Bel! What’s going on? I heard fighting and knew you’d need help.”
The guards looked on in confusion as Duro ran up the path, Cai at his side.
“In the name of Dis,” one of the senior guards said as they watched the centurion approach his fallen companion. “Can anyone just wander in here? It’s supposed to be impregnable.”
“What have you done to him you bastards?” Duro was furious at the sight of the druid lying on the grass, and he drew his spatha as Cai ran to his master’s side.
“Calm yourself,” Gavo commanded, waving angrily at the centurion. “Bellicus sacrificed himself to save the queen and all of Alt Clota. He will be remembered as a hero for what he’s done.”
Duro turned to Narina, who had been released by her guards in order to deal with Catia, and she nodded silent confirmation, too upset to speak.
The centurion, not a native of Alt Clota, so less overawed than the others by the king’s presence, bent down and dragged Coroticus’s torn body off the unmoving, bloodstained druid. He knelt and placed a hand on Bellicus’s shoulder, tears blurring his vision as he mumbled angrily, “Damn you, Bel, you can’t die. I don’t want to write a song about you too."
There was no response, not even a flicker to suggest his friend had heard him, and Catia began to cry again, hiding her face in Narina’s clothes as they held one another for comfort. Then Cai licked a drop of blood from a cut on Bellicus’s face and, to everyone’s surprise, the druid’s eyes fluttered open.
“What took you so long to come and rescue me?” he muttered to Duro. “Next time, don’t wait so long.”
And then his eyes closed again, and the sobbing grew louder and, as the centurion looked around at the gathered people of Dun Breatann, he realised it wasn’t only the womenfolk with tears streaming down their cheeks.
Song of the Centurion Page 30