The Stolen Bride

by Tony Hays

  “I was very comfortable in our house, Malgwyn. I had no reason to come to these unfriendly lands.” Merlin carried a sour look on his wrinkled face. He stood before Doged’s hall. If it was possible, I believed Merlin had grown yet thinner since my departure. His tunic and braccae hung on him, and I worried about his health.

  Arthur had been right. The lanes here were empty. A few dogs protested our approach, but apart from a single, surly guard at the gate there seemed to be no one at home.

  “I did not call for you, Merlin. Blame Arthur for that,” I answered, which was not exactly the truth.

  “And why?”

  Ider and I dismounted, giving instructions to the soldiers to await our return. We entered the hall to find Kay, alone at a table, drinking from a cup. The feasting room was filled with smoke. I looked up and saw that the hole to draw the smoke from the room was partially blocked. My brother, poor Cuneglas, would have repaired it quickly and expertly. He had been a thatcher, and a good one, until killed some years before. Though he was often sullen and sarcastic, like our father, I did miss Cuneglas, an emotion that caused me even more confusion, as his wife, Ygerne, was now my woman. But I pushed those thoughts from my mind and focused on the present.

  “Kay, Arthur wishes you to join him at Trevelgue.” I quickly explained all that had happened, and when I mentioned the numerous Dogeds from the night before I noticed an uncomfortable smile on Merlin’s face. I said nothing but resolved to question him when we had more privacy.

  “And you and Merlin?” Kay asked when I had finished.

  “We will join you before Doged’s funeral on the morrow. We have some chores to do here first.” As I finished speaking, I noticed a slight frown spread across Kay’s face. “Is everything all right, Kay?”

  “He is tiring of his role as Arthur’s chief steward,” Merlin explained.

  “I wish to be in the field, commanding troops again. I fear that this is all that Arthur thinks I am good for.” A bitterness tinged his voice that concerned me.

  “There will be plenty of action for all in this affair, I fear.”

  “As you say. Ider is to stay here?”

  “Aye. You should take two or three of his men as escort to Trevelgue. Saxons are about, as well as Cilydd’s and Druce’s men. They have already killed one of Arthur’s soldiers and a village full of people.” Quickly I told Kay of the massacre. True to his nature, he grew angry.

  “They must be avenged, Malgwyn.”

  I laid my hand on his shoulder. “They will be. When Druce killed Arthur’s soldier, I saw immediately that he would do anything to further his cause, even kill innocents. There was one survivor. I have her with a special guard. Apparently, Druce did not learn a lesson from Lauhiir.” Lauhiir had transgressed against the Rigotamos as well, and suffered for it.

  “Who did he kill?” Kay queried.

  “Aidan. Bedevere sent him to bring Arthur back from Tyntagel. Druce stopped him and killed him.”

  “I knew Aidan. He was a good man. Very well, if a patrol is all I can command now, I will take it.”

  His bitterness surprised me, and I resolved to talk to him at the first opportunity. But just then, I only said, “Good. Arthur needs you. We will join you in a few hours.”

  At that, Kay spun about and tromped from the room, his caligae pounding the packed earthen floor loudly.

  “How long has he been like that?” I asked Merlin.

  My old friend shrugged. “Since you all left for this journey. He will leave these feelings behind,” Merlin added dismissively.

  I sat down, suddenly weary. A platter of cheese and bread lay on the table before Merlin, and I helped myself. As I ate, Merlin frowned. “Why was I dragged away from my work? What can I add to this affair?”

  Reaching into my pouch, I pulled out the sample of the brown rock and the other stones. I tossed them onto the table and watched his reaction. To my surprise, his hand first went to the heavy brown ore.

  “I have seen this before, but I know of no one who has successfully worked it. The temperature that is required to smelt it is higher than anyone has yet achieved. That does not mean it cannot be done, but it would be difficult and would require much time.” He stopped and pawed the jumble of rocks usually found with gold. “These are more interesting. I am sure you know that gold is often found when these are present.”

  At that, I tossed the single bit of gold on the table.

  “Ahh. Is there much?”

  “Only this right now.”

  He picked up the piece of agaphite and turned it over and over in his hand. “This is perhaps the most useful of them all. These blue stones are popular for brooches and fibulae, but I have rarely seen them outside of Egypt.”

  “You have been to Egypt?” For some reason, I could not imagine my ancient friend outside our lands.

  Merlin smiled that thin-lipped smile of his. “When I was a youngster, aye, before Arthur was even born, I worked on a ship that plied the trade route between here and the lands of the Christ, Egypt. It was a stunning introduction to life, Malgwyn, and some days I regret that I have left that part of life behind me.”

  “Is that where you learned about making someone look like another?” It was an arrow shot without aiming, but my belly told me it was true.

  Merlin hung his head. “So Doged told you of our correspondence. I meant to ask you for some parchment, but I found a discarded leaf and used that.”

  “You should know, Merlin, that on the night that Doged was killed there were at least two other Dogeds wandering about the fort. And he said nothing of it to Bedevere and me. We found the scrap of parchment in his chamber, and I recognized that it was a cast-off of mine. But that makes no difference; you were welcome to the parchment. What I need to know is why Doged wanted such information?”

  “That is not a question that has a short answer, and truthfully I would be guessing. I knew Doged many winters ago, when he was but a young lord following Vortigern’s banner. We remained friends during his exile from the consilium, and, indeed, I was one of those who petitioned Ambrosius to restore him to his former place. Doged was always a good man, without ambition to become Rigotamos, and he was ever a faithful servant of the consilium.”

  I nodded. “Though I knew him but for a few short hours, I can say that he remained so until his death.”

  “Then he remained true to his nature.” Merlin stopped and laced his pale, blue-veined hands together. “As to why he wanted my help on that particular subject, I cannot say. He merely asked about the best methods.”

  For one of the first times in my acquaintance with Merlin, I readily saw that he was avoiding something, giving me part but not all of the truth. And because I felt these multiple Dogeds contributed in some way to these events, I decided to push him.

  “Then why did he think you might have some knowledge of these things?”

  My old friend turned away then. When he faced me once again, it was with a crinkled look of frustration, with me. “Malgwyn, are there not things of greater moment that you should be focusing on, rather than an old man’s fancies?”

  At that, I grew frustrated and slung the platter on the floor. “If someone would answer my questions about this, perhaps I would. But, like Arthur, you strew stones in my path.”

  Merlin’s eyes grew wide. “You have spoken to Arthur of this?”

  “I have.”

  “Malgwyn, do not travel down this path.”

  “How can I not? I, personally, witnessed at least two other Dogeds the night of his murder. How can that not be important?”

  “I cannot tell you that it isn’t. But there is only one person, yet living, who can help you in this. Lady Igraine.”

  “Arthur’s mother?”

  Merlin nodded solemnly.

  “Merlin, this is a diversion. What could Igraine have to do with Doged’s murder? She is herself on her deathbed.”

  “You need to know that Doged was a friend of Igraine’s, as was I.”

&nb
sp; This was ridiculous. “Merlin, I demand the truth.”

  He began to speak and then stopped, began again, and stopped yet again. Finally, he said, “Malgwyn, though I love you like a son, I swore on pain of death to keep this secret. I cannot break that vow.”

  Merlin was much like Bedevere in that regard. Once an oath was taken, both would die before breaking it.

  “But Merlin, Arthur was not even alive then. What could he know of it that would send him into such a fury?”

  Merlin shook his old head. “It is not what he knows, Malgwyn. It is what he thinks he knows.”

  I cocked my head to the side in obvious confusion. “He does not know the truth?”

  “No,” and the old man smiled conspiratorially. “He does not.” Merlin paused for a moment, shifting his thin frame and causing the leather in his belt to squeak. “Consider this, Malgwyn: If Doged was the one who asked me about these things, and it was Doged who was being impersonated, does that not tell you that he was thus aware of the impersonations?”

  “Aye, or it tells me that something went horribly wrong.”

  “Have it as you will, but I cannot and will not tell you more.”

  I had known Merlin long enough to know how far I could push him. “Let us go to the mines.”

  * * *

  You could hardly call them mines, more like great holes in the ground. Torches had been lit around the rim of each, but only Ider and his soldiers were about.

  “No one was here, Malgwyn, when we arrived. I suspect that they all went to Trevelgue,” Ider told us.

  Before I could stop him, Merlin had descended into one of the holes on a rickety wooden ladder.

  “One of you. Bring a torch down here. Now!”

  A soldier snatched up a torch and, forgoing the ladder, hurried down the few feet to Merlin’s side. I heard rocks clattering and dirt sliding as the soldier made his way down the slope.

  For the next several minutes, all I heard was the sounds of Merlin breathing and that of rocks thudding in the dirt. I am not a metalworker, nor am I learned in the art of mining. Once, when I was fighting the Saxons with Arthur, we had ventured near the mines in the north. But they were mostly carved from caves already there. When I was much younger, my father took me to see the old flint mines of the people who came before. Though they were much neglected, they were much like Doged’s mines, massive holes. If you looked carefully, you could see the remnants of scaffolding several feet down.

  But Doged’s mines were not yet that far advanced, and, through the flickering torches, I could still see the top of Merlin’s balding head, bouncing up and down as he moved about. Finally, I heard his caligae slip on the dirt and gravel as he climbed out, and I gave him my one hand for aid.

  He was huffing and puffing, and his pouch was bulging. “I am far too old to be climbing in and out of holes, Malgwyn,” he complained. “Tell Arthur this.” He led me away, out of earshot of the soldiers, and motioned for Ider to join us.

  “There is gold here,” Merlin affirmed softly. “How much and how difficult it will be to extract I do not know. The agaphite is good and profitable. This brown ore,” and he hefted one of the odd, brown rocks, looking something like a piece of wood turned to rock, “is valuable only if a way can be found to smelt it. As I told you before, I know men who have tried but been unable to work it. What little I know of metalworking tells me that it would produce a strong metal.”

  I remained silent for a moment, assessing what I had just been told. “So, we are left with nothing, but maybe something.”

  “Oh,” Merlin responded. “There is much here of value, if only the agaphite; it is of a very high quality. Properly mined and worked by craftsmen, it could provide a great profit.”

  “Then Arthur’s urgency to keep Doged’s lands in the consilium is not misplaced?”

  “No, it is absolutely not misplaced. And if the gold is to be had without much difficulty, then whoever controls these mines controls the western lands, just as David is the most powerful lord of the north because he controls the old Roman gold mines.”

  I pondered all of this for a long moment, and Merlin took it for hesitancy.

  “Malgwyn, we have trading ports to the south of Castellum Arturius, but they are constantly plagued by Saxon pirates. If we lose access to these western ports and the goods that pass through them, Arthur will be forced to tax the people more and to claim more of their goods and resources. You know Arthur. He will pay the people for what he takes (though David and the rest take what they wish without payment and consider Arthur a fool for doing otherwise), but the day will come when he too will have to simply take what he needs. He has become and remains high king because he does not impose burdensome levies on the other lords. But he will have to. And ultimately, that will cause the collapse of the consilium.

  “Vortigern learned what happens when you abuse the people and the other lords. You can visit his grave and counsel with his bones if it makes you feel better.” The last words were spoken with a sharpness uncommon to Merlin.

  “I do not doubt your words. You have seen far more than I. But you know as I do that being right, being just, being fair, does not guarantee victory. Sometimes I wonder if the task that Arthur has set for himself, for all of us that follow his banner, is not an impossible one.”

  Merlin’s expression softened, his lips curving into a slight smile. “If I heard those words from anyone else, I would thrash him. But I know what you have given in Arthur’s cause, and I know something else as well.”

  “And what is that?”

  “It is your cause too and always has been.”

  I grunted, since acknowledging the truth of his words was not something I was willing to do. “Ider, guard these mines well. At any hint of an intruder, send your fastest horse and best rider to alert us.”

  Merlin and I went to mount our horses for our journey to Trevelgue, but Ider caught my good arm. “Malgwyn, take two soldiers with you for protection.”

  Shaking my head, I answered, “No, Ider. I would rather not leave you with fewer men than you have. Merlin and I will be fine.” I pulled a hood over my head; Ygerne had just sewn it to this tunic before our journey. “We are but one old man and a one-armed man. We threaten no one.”

  * * *

  The wind had calmed a bit by the time we had left the mines behind. I said a prayer to Arthur’s god and to all the gods to keep Ider safe. No man had a better friend than I did in young Ider. He had risked much for me, and I loved him as a son. But if even the small Saxon force took aim at the mines, Ider would have his hands full fending them off. And while he had taken to the soldier’s life as if born to it, he still had much to learn.

  “Do not worry for him, Malgwyn,” Merlin said into the silence. “Ider will be fine.” Uncanny! Merlin had a way of knowing what was in my heart before even I did.

  “He is very young yet and has not been truly tried in battle.”

  “No man is tried in battle until he is.”

  A frown grew on my face. “What does that mean, Merlin?”

  He grinned to match my frown. “We are, none of us, experienced at anything until we get that opportunity. Some will survive and grow wiser; some will die. Ider is a survivor. I feel it in my bones.”

  Merlin paused, and when he spoke again the timbre of his voice had altered, subtly. “Malgwyn, I do not know why Doged wished to know these things about disguise. And anything I say about that is but speculation.”

  “Sometimes speculation hits the target as surely as if it were aimed.” I knew he was uncomfortable keeping things from me, but I knew also that he would keep his word to Lady Igraine, no matter how much guilt I laid at his feet.

  “And how is young Owain’s education proceeding?” I changed the subject.

  At that question, Merlin returned to smiling. “He is a very bright child, Malgwyn. He understands numbers better than I, and he has learned to read uncommonly fast.”

  “He is your son, Merlin,” I reminded him.
Owain had been conceived in a stolen night of pleasure between Merlin and Nyfain, a lady of Arthur’s court. She was a kind woman, but free with her pleasures during both of her marriages. The first had been to one of Arthur’s early followers, but he was killed in battle. She then took Accolon to husband, an embittered soldier. But poor Accolon too soon tasted death.

  “Sshh.” The hiss came from Merlin.

  I stopped and looked to him. He had brought his horse up short, and now Merlin was leaning over the horse’s neck, peering into the darkness.

  My breath caught.

  “What?” I whispered after a long moment.

  “Horses.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  In tandem, we urged our mounts to the side of the road, into a grove of trees. After a few moments, punctuated by the whistle of wind through the branches, the source of Merlin’s alarm rode into view.

  They were ten in number and, like us, hooded and armed, some with spears, some with swords. Though they were too few in number to pose much of a threat to Ider, that they had swords bespoke resources that I would not have credited to a wandering group of bandits. Iron was expensive in those days. None was garbed with a lord’s symbol, but they rode as soldiers will, straight backed and alert.

  As they passed, I caught a few words of their speech, but either it was garbled by the wind or they were speaking a tongue that I knew not. I wished that we had brought Gurdur with us, a forlorn wish now.

  In these days, it may seem odd that we were so quick to hide along the road at the first hint of passing riders. But that was a different time. Such stretches of roads through sparsely populated regions were the haunts of latrunculii, bandits, who killed and took what they wanted, what they needed. And if not bandits, in the later days it could as easily be Saxons or the Scotti.

  Travel was dangerous. A cautious man learned to detect the little clues, the subtle hints that all might not be well. Wood smoke, but no sign of a house or village, could be from a bandit’s fire. The sudden hush of night sounds might point to an unseen presence along the road. The pricking up of a horse’s ears might also be a sign of danger; horses hear or sense much more than we do.