The Killing Way

by Tony Hays

  We stopped finally at Merlin’s door, right where Eleonore’s body had been found. The body was gone now, delivered, I supposed, to Cuneglas’s house where it would be washed and prepared for burial. “I have seen the site of the murder, Kay. What else is there?”

  “You haven’t seen this, Malgwyn.”

  He shoved the wooden door open and we both ducked as we entered. A single lamplight brightened the room, and Bedevere stood near a rickety wooden table, a dark lump lying on it.

  A sinking feeling filled the pit of my belly, as I looked down on the object on the table. It was wrapped in woolen cloth. I knew what it was when I saw it, but the knowing didn’t make the revelation any easier to take. With a deep breath, I pulled an edge of the cloth away. All in the room gasped.

  A human heart.

  Bloodied, beginning to dry and atrophy, but a human heart nonetheless.

  Arthur’s hopes for Merlin’s salvation suddenly seemed forlorn at best.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Malgwyn? Malgwyn?”

  It was Kay, pestering me to say something. “What would you wish me to say? That it was a deer’s heart? Well, it’s not, my friend. It’s human, and I’d lay money it’s the girl’s. Someone took it from her body.” There was silence for some moments. Somewhere, outside the door, I heard someone retching, thought it must be Cuneglas.

  “Does this mean that it truly was Merlin?” Kay asked. I glanced at him and saw a slow anger building.

  “We’re meant to think so,” I said sharply, more to keep control over him than in truth. Merlin may still have done this deed. The old fool or more likely somebody else was giving me little choice but to tell Arthur what he didn’t want to hear. “Who knows of this?”

  “Just Bedevere and myself,” Kay answered. “Arthur sent us to fetch Merlin some suitable clothes,” he stammered. Kay’s eyes shot to the object on the table. “So that is Eleonore’s heart?”

  “Aye,” I answered. “Or at least I suppose it to be. I know only that Eleonore’s heart is not in her body, and this is a human heart. More, I cannot say. Say nothing of this to anyone. There is more to this than what it seems.” I said it all with more confidence than I felt, but I had no other choice. Something was amiss here, and I felt, rather than knew, that the easiest answer was not the right one.

  Kay turned away, his gloved hand to his mouth, and a gagging sound slipped from behind it. I looked away for a moment. Such times deserve privacy.

  I pulled the cloth back around the heart and sank heavily into a chair. “Tell me of the girl and the court. I am told that you were fond of her.”

  It was at that moment, I think, that Kay became a living human being for me. We had known each other for years, befriended each other on the field of battle, watched each other’s back when the fighting was fierce. But that breeds a knowledge of a man that has little to do with affairs of the heart. And after my wound, after I dove into a jug, we were not close, a situation more my fault than his. Embarrassment is a strong and bitter disease. So I did not know him, not really. Not until he too sank onto a stool and began to cry.

  “I would have had her as my wife, Malgwyn,” he said, brushing the tears from his cheeks with weather-roughened hands wrapped in woolen cloth against the chill. His hair was light, lighter than mine. His father wore the purple, I am told, and some say his mother was a Pict. Such pairings were not uncommon. Of this, I understood little. I knew though that he was a good man in battle.

  “But she was a peasant, a serving girl only. Surely some girl of higher birth would have been more to your liking.”

  He looked at me with searing eyes, as if I had taunted his honor. “Never speak of her in that way. She was better than them. Better than all the women of noble family. She had the fire of the Picts in her eyes, and her spirit was as free as a hawk. You should know that as well as any man.”

  It was true that Eleonore shared more with my wife than just blood. Kay was in love; that much was plain. And love could make men do horrible, wicked things. But could it make you kill the one you loved? Maybe, if that love wasn’t returned. I had seen stranger things in my life. But mutilating the corpse? Yes, I could see a young nobleman, frantic over his actions, doing all in his power to cast the light of inquiry away from him. No, though I prayed for a different answer than Kay, I could not exclude him from my list any more than I could Merlin.

  “What said my lord Arthur about your match?”

  The young man shrugged. “He said naught about it. We all knew that Eleonore was his favorite, but he had no inclination of that sort toward her.”

  “Why say you that?” Lords such as Arthur took women as freely as they drank wine.

  Kay shrugged. “He had Guinevere.”

  I nodded. Until my farm was raided by the Saxons and my life torn asunder, my beautiful cousin Guinevere was the first to bring gossip and shame to our family. Bold and impetuous, she heeded not the family’s commands, and when but fourteen seasons, she joined a religious order at a house near unto the brothers at Ynys-witrin and took the vows of poverty and chastity. I was married and had my own hovel by then, and I heard the affair had something to do with a young man and an arranged marriage that she fought with all her might. I had battled with her, begged her not to take such a serious step at so young an age, but the sisters were so pleased at her zeal that their arguments easily defeated mine. It was they whom she sought to please, not her family.

  For three years she was a devoted member of the order, but in those three years she grew into a woman, and her nature rebelled against the strictures of the order. She was disciplined for partaking of strong drink, for not performing her daily prayers, for not assisting with the daily chores.

  One day a young lord came to call, collecting taxes for Lord Cadwy, and his eyes fell on the beautiful nun. He felt shamed by his lust for her, felt horrible for how the glow of her skin touched him. He vowed never to return to the monastery, to send one of his men to collect the tax. But by the following week the young Lord Arthur had found a different reason to visit the sisters. And the week after, yet another cause arose to bring him within their confines. And Guinevere too watched this intense, devout young man and grew to love him.

  For a year they did nothing more than exchange glances, secret smiles. Arthur believed too strongly in the Christ to do something as sinful as to bed a nun. But, as will happen with humans, the temptations became too much and a smuggled note arranged a secret assignation. And the secret assignation ended in a bed of leaves. Two visits, three visits, four visits, and the lovers were caught.

  Arthur was shamed. Guinevere was cast from the community and ordered never to return. She had broken her vows. Lord Cadwy kept the affair quiet but forbade them to meet. But Arthur loved her, and though he knew that they could never marry, he provided a cottage for her and visited when he could. As Cadwy and Ambrosius grew older and their power transferred to Arthur, the couple was less careful about their meetings, and rumors began to sweep the land of Arthur’s sorceress, rumors that I knew Merlin spread to keep Guinevere’s true identity secret. But with the passage of time, so passed the urgency to keep such a confidence. Slowly, Arthur made her welcome at court, though rumors still swirled that she was a witch, and until Arthur would marry her, she kept a cottage in the country, hidden away from view. Even now, when she appeared at feasts as Arthur’s companion, people whispered that she was a witch who could cast spells and bring calamity on any who dared question her place at Arthur’s side.

  I had known the truth all along. Guinevere was, after all, my cousin. Kay and Bedevere, as Arthur’s oldest and closest companions, would have known from the first, but I could think of none other.

  “I did not see him with other women,” Kay continued, “and I would have. Also, he did not tell me to cease my suit, nor did he encourage me. The same cannot be said of that newcomer to the hall, Tristan. He comes from Lord Mark’s lands to the west. Aye, he’s that distant king’s son.”

  “Why don
’t you like him? Eleonore?”

  Kay’s eyes darted away from me. “’Twas more than that, Malgwyn.”

  “Yes?”

  “He brought word from King Mark, word that made Arthur furious.”

  “Kay!” Bedevere shouted.

  “Hush. This is Malgwyn, not some harpy in the streets.”

  “Mark is not here for the consilium?”

  “No. He sent his son in his stead.”

  “And that word?” I pressed.

  Kay glanced around. “This is not for every man’s ears. Tristan is charged by his father to bring an offer of a permanent peace with the Saxons to the consilium.”

  I stood straight up, blood rising into my face. “A permanent peace with those devils? Kay, this cannot be allowed!”

  “Calm yourself,” he said, rising to meet me and placing a hand on my shoulder. “Arthur is violently opposed to a permanent peace. And the peace they offer is no gift, more a surrender. They demand all the territory of the Cantii and full access through our lands and Mark’s lands to the western sea.”

  “They seek free passage across all of our island,” Bedevere said.

  “That is a surrender.” I relaxed. Granting them the land of the Cantii in practice would mean little. They were already well settled there and the right to settle had been lawfully granted to them by Vortigern. But those lands lay close to where the Iceni had lived, and bards sang still of that fearsome woman Boudicca who rebelled against the Romans. As much as we clung to many of our Roman ways, we still had our native heroes. She was one. Arthur would never agree to such an arrangement. He had seen as many burned hovels as had I. And, high lord though he might be—next to Ambrosius—he knew that he would lose his grip at once by agreeing to such a treaty with the Saxons. Their treachery against Vortigern was well known. Vortimer too would oppose such a treaty. Though he championed the pagan Druids, he knew that treating with the Saxons in such a manner would be surrender, not diplomacy. And he did not want to be associated with his father’s memory, a father indeed who had tossed Vortimer’s mother aside and married a Saxon woman.

  “But,” I said, bringing the subject back in focus, “Eleonore fed your distrust of this Tristan?”

  Kay’s face became hard. “He was too free with his hands, and he pressed his suit too hard with Arthur.”

  “Pressed it how?”

  “When Arthur refused his offer for Eleonore, he wanted to buy her. She was a freewoman, of lowly birth though she be, and Arthur was offended, and were Tristan any other than King Mark’s son, Arthur would have tossed him from the rampart walls.”

  I snorted. “I would have done so anyway. But I suppose that’s why Arthur’s a lord and I’m a one-armed scribe.”

  Bedevere’s head whipped around. “You are far more than that, Malgwyn. You hold a place in our lord’s reverence that no one else equals and no one else understands. And your feats at Tribuit are still sung of in Arthur’s hall.”

  Tribuit. Would that I had never heard of that river. I rubbed the stub of my arm at the reminder. Since that day, the smell of fresh blooming flowers left me sick at my stomach. I had lain on a bed of such blooms as my life’s blood drained from me, almost, until Arthur pulled me back into this world.

  Of the rest that Bedevere claimed, I doubted. But then, how was I to know? I rarely left my hut. Were it not for the women that brought my food to me and the youngster that I had taught to sharpen my quills, I would speak to few. The melancholy which gripped me dug at my throat day and night. I did not feel worthy to speak so I pretended a sourness that was a lie. Before Gwyneth was killed, I had loved to drink and laugh with my neighbors. But those days ended with the beating of her heart.

  I turned my attention back to Kay. “Enough of me. Eleonore, Kay? How did Eleonore respond to Tristan’s suit?”

  “She did not welcome it, nor did she reject it. Eleonore was of a changeable nature.”

  Once again, it seemed that Kay had as much reason to kill the poor child as anyone. I sank down and peered at the woolen-covered lump on the table. While he was lost in his own thoughts, I found a piece of leather and bound the now withered, blackened heart in it, wondering at how such a fragile-looking object could be so tough and resilient. “Did you know, Kay, that the human heart is almost indestructible? When we stormed the Saxons in their fort at the river Glen, we threw fire into their huts. Later, as we picked through the ruins for anything worth carrying away, I came upon a Saxon, dead and burned, but in his chest, his heart could still be seen, mighty muscle that it is. I do not pretend to understand it, but when all else is gone, the heart remains.”

  I paused. How would I know aught of hearts? I had sold mine for the blood of Saxons.

  “Who did this, Malgwyn? Who? Merlin?” Kay wasn’t interested in my speech on the resilience of the human heart. And he was no more moved by severed limbs and exposed organs than I. But as I had been moved by the butchery of Gwyneth, so was he moved by the butchery of Eleonore. While waiting for my response, he spun around and unfastened the bronze fibula holding his fur cloak around his shoulders. With a flourish, he removed the cloak and laid it across a stool, wincing as he did so. I noticed a woolen wrap around his wrist, the flesh red and swollen.

  “How came your injury, Kay?”

  He glanced at his wrist and shrugged. “Yesterday morn, I was at sword practice with Bedevere and twisted it. A day, maybe two, and it should be fine.”

  “Aye,” added Bedevere, “and I would have bested him.”

  Inwardly I chuckled. It did not surprise me that they had been at swords. Such weapons were few in these times, and theirs had been gifts of Arthur’s for their loyalty and bravery. They lost no opportunity to display them. I took notice of the fact and began to answer his question. “I do not think so, Kay. He is an old man, and Eleonore was strangled to death. I doubt that a man as old and frail as he could overpower a strong young woman.”

  “She did not die by the knife?”

  “No, ’twas no knife that ended her life. ’Twas human hands that choked the breath from her. The knife was wielded later and removed her heart.”

  Kay went pale again, raising his fist to his mouth as if to cover a cough. In a second, I heard him clear his throat hoarsely. “But does that not argue for Merlin? He strangled and killed her and then removed her heart for his demonic ritual,” Bedevere argued.

  “Perhaps. But Merlin is a frail old man. I’m not sure he has the strength to strangle a strong young girl.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Kay conceded, turning back to face us. “But sometimes old people have reservoirs of strength that are unapparent.”

  “And you, Kay? Could you have strangled her with your one good hand?”

  His eyes grew large and bright. No fear hid in their depths though. Only anger. And that was a welcome sight.

  “I loved her, Malgwyn. I could not harm her.”

  “Even if she chose Tristan over you?”

  “Even then.” His eyes held mine, firm and tight. And I was glad to see that too. Men give themselves away with their eyes, as much or more than women do. I needed a colleague in this affair, someone who could lend their ears. Kay and I had fought side by side, saved each other’s lives on countless occasions. I could not yet count him out in this affair, but if he was guilty, keeping him close by would give me more chance to watch for a hint of his guilt. If he were not guilty, well, a better companion could not be had.

  “I’m sorry, Malgwyn,” a voice said from the door. It was Cuneglas, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

  I waved him off. “I understand, my brother. What is sad is that such sights haven’t the same impact on me.”

  “I saw you kneeling beside Eleonore,” Kay admonished. “Your heart is not empty.”

  “No, not completely. But my grief was more about history than the present.”

  Cuneglas regarded me with something approaching pity in his eyes. “It was all of it that made me vomit. I am a thatcher, not a soldier. M
y eyes haven’t seen many butchered bodies, not as yours have.” He paused and passed me a soft look. “She was a young and beautiful woman, one who had become a part of my family. This butchery!” he said with a shiver. “I did not think man capable of such.”

  “It is not easy to accept, but I have come to believe that there is not much that man is not capable of.”

  “Your life has not been easy.”

  “Nor Kay’s.” I noticed that the tall warrior’s eyes were moist and his face strained. “But what is an easy life? We scrape some food from the ground and give a portion to our lord as his due. When he calls, we answer his command and fight and die, often for things that have no meaning for us, but to fulfill some private ambition of his. And, in the end, all is taken from us by the hand of death. Such are our lives, brother, and I see nothing easy in the tale for any of us.”

  The memory of the bright and beautiful child would not leave me. And I wondered about the truth of what I had said earlier to Cuneglas. Was it truly history that sparked my revulsion? Or was it the barbarity committed on such a young one? In fact, I had lied to Cuneglas. This butchery was a mystery. I thought of Gwyneth; at least I understood why she died. The Saxons wanted our land, our patria. But Eleonore, carved like a slaughtered deer, made no sense. But sense there had to be, some reason for it!

  I stopped and considered my words. “Challenge,” I said suddenly. “Challenge is one of the reasons to go forward, the hope of accomplishing something worthwhile, something necessary. It still does not make life easier, but it adds value to the living of it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cuneglas took his leave of us, pleading exhaustion and a full day’s work ahead of him, as well as Eleonore’s burial to arrange. I watched him disappear into the darkened town and wondered at the different paths our lives had taken. Turning away after a moment, Kay and I crossed the lane back to Arthur’s hall. A handful of drunken soldiers lounged about, playing at dice, men I did not know and hence I took them for visitors, here with one of the other lords. I found a servant and gave him the heart, bundled up, and without saying what it was, I told him to stow it away until I should call for it.