The Iron Grail

by Robert Holdstock

  The king’s lodge would be left alone for a while, at Urtha’s specific order. It had not been burned, though was badly ransacked and the roof broken through. But it could be lived in, and counsel could be held there. This was not a gesture of magnanimity on Urtha’s part, simply practical. His priority was to erect good quarters for his new army, good living space for the survivors of his own clan.

  Meanwhile, four forges were re-established close to the well and were soon in hot production, repairing weapons and armour, fashioning the tools that would be needed for the general rebuilding itself.

  Out on the Plain of MaegCatha the carrion birds had come to feast. Some picked at the eyes and throats of those of Urtha’s people who had fallen in the battle; it would be a while before the remains could be taken from the field. Others, spectral birds, white-plumed, red-eyed, strangely slow in their searching flight as if they hopped and flew through water, feasted on the fast-corrupting sprawl of those who had died from Ghostland. Grey faces, bodies clad in rusted iron, arms uplifted in despair greeted the talons and hooked bills of these feeders on the twice-dead.

  It was a grim sight. It was not possible to survey it without feeling subdued by the display of coiling guts and arching backs, blood-blackened grinning mouths widened by the sword.

  Standing close to Urtha on the ramparts, I overheard Ullanna say to him, ‘I don’t understand. Why did they come out of the Otherworld? What can they have hoped to achieve in this drab and dreary land? They had lived life to the full, they had died in battle, they had a new life in a country where all was kind to them, where they would meet their sons and daughters in due time. Why cross back to this godforsaken plain?’

  Urtha hesitated a long time before he answered. ‘Why does a wild horse run towards a thorn thicket?’

  She frowned. ‘Well, perhaps because it’s being pursued. Men are pursuing it. Or perhaps wolves. It finds a way to escape.’

  ‘Why does a wide-eyed calf run into the maw of a wicker-walled trap, to be captured and marked, led away and slaughtered?’

  ‘Because it’s being driven. Men are driving it.’

  ‘So: either escaping or being driven to do the deed.’

  Ullanna laughed and leaned on the warlord’s shoulder. ‘I see what you’re driving at! But we’re not the best qualified to answer the question.’ She glanced at me as she spoke. ‘What about you, Merlin? Do you have an insight for us?’

  ‘A glimmer of one,’ I answered, and she acknowledged my words with a little nod of the head.

  I had already spoken to Urtha about my suspicions concerning the Shadows of Heroes, that they were a divided host of Dead and Unborn, and that though he certainly had allies among their ranks, distinguishing friend from foe would take some time. What I couldn’t address was the reason for the division, though my suspicions on that front were growing as well. I would need to go back across the river, and journey more deeply into Ghostland than the small sanctuary where the children, dislocated from their own world, had been nurtured and protected by the modronae.

  Behind us, in one of the open spaces, Kymon was riding a grey pony in tighter and tighter circles, getting the animal used to his feet, his weight, his use of the reins. He looked very much the small man in control. Then his father asked, ‘Where is Munda? I haven’t seen the girl since we entered the fortress last night.’

  Both he and Ullanna looked at me, as if I might have known her whereabouts, but the last I’d seen of the girl she was walking towards the far end of the hill, where the apparition of the great Donn had faded, and the reckless Cymbrii had disappeared.

  Suddenly Urtha was in a panic. He jumped from the walkway inside the wall, calling loudly for his daughter. Kymon stopped in the middle of his circling, shook his head when asked if he had seen his sister.

  An awful sense of fear swept across the newly claimed citadel. The striking of iron in the forges hesitated; the babble of laughter and shouting eased to an eerie silence. Only Urtha’s voice calling for Munda broke the stillness.

  The girl’s voice called back as if from a dream, becoming stronger, sharper, finally as real as the girl herself. She was beyond the fortress forest, standing quite still. I could see her and she could see me. Across the distance, she smiled at me.

  Urtha, relieved not angry, spent time with her.

  When later he returned to his duties of supervision and building, Munda sought me out. I was scratching double spirals on stones to turn, marked side down, around the edge of the shallow spring that rose in Taurovinda. The deep well, behind its stone wall, was supervised only by women. The girl sat down beside me and ran a small, pale finger along my small, shallow scratching, the two spirals, running alongside each other, connected at the middle.

  ‘I know this.’

  ‘I’m beginning to realise that you know a great deal. What does the spiral say to you?’

  ‘It’s Time. Time starts young, here, at the outside, and grows old, here, at the centre, then winds back upon itself to become young again.’

  I was astonished. She caught my look of curious surprise and shrugged. ‘It’s easy. As we go forward through Time, deeper into it, so we pass ourselves going back. Time reflects the seasons, growing older then renewing. Simple. Can you see across the divide? Can you see yourself going back?’

  ‘Where did you learn this?’ I asked her, ignoring her impertinent inquiry. (It was very costly to see into that other Time, where the world moved back to its start. I’d never risked it. I could see no possible use for it.)

  ‘I have a good dream teacher,’ she replied. ‘I like her. She makes me laugh. In the dream, it’s always snowing and we skate on icy lakes and eat fat fishes, grilled over wood fires. She’s nice.’

  My head reeled with her words.

  If you have read my account of the resurrection of Jason, in the land of the Pohjoli, before he and I ventured into Greek Land, you will understand why my blood turned to ice at that moment. Munda’s ‘dream teacher’ could surely be no other than Niiv, the northern enchantress, daughter of Mielikki, the Forest Lady who was also the protecting goddess of Argo.

  ‘What’s her name?’ I asked carefully, and shuddered as Munda whispered, ‘Niif. She’s very pretty, and she gets very angry…’

  I remembered that!

  Niiv was killing herself, using her talent without care or consideration for the fact that she would age very rapidly if she experimented so powerfully! She was as determined as Medea in this. If I felt a moment’s concern for the young woman from the north, the mood was soon replaced by anxiety for myself.

  Yes, I knew that Niiv was making her way back to me, aboard Argo, taunting Jason. She had visited me in the valley of the exiles and taunted me in turn! But Munda’s words made it clear that Niiv had been closer to me more often than I’d realised. She had been in the groves by the river, whispering to Munda in her dreams … Perhaps she had been in Ghostland, before the girl had caught up with the interrupted breath of her life, quickly ageing as we’d crossed the river.

  Perhaps, indeed, Niiv had been spying on me from the moment I’d left Greek Land, aboard the shadow of Argo herself. Niiv was determined to exist permanently in my life.

  I gently asked Munda when her dream teacher, the pretty girl, had first started to talk to her. She answered, ‘After we came back. After my friend Atanta went away.’

  ‘Not when you were playing with Atanta before we crossed the river?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. When Atanta went away I was very sad.’

  ‘I remember. I’m sorry you were sad.’

  ‘But Niif came and told me that all old friends will eventually find each other. Sometimes they get taken for different tasks, and sometimes they forget that they need each other. But in time, everyone who is joined at the heart comes back for the final embrace. Do you believe that, Merlin?’

  ‘I believe that Niif believes it,’ I commented, trying not to sound sour.

  ‘But you don’t?’

  ‘I b
elieve it slightly. One day I’m sure you’ll find your friend again.’

  She smiled, looking wistful. ‘And you’ll find the forest that you’ll wear as a cloak. I hope I see you in that cloak of forests!’

  The girl’s words spilled from her lips as innocent as leverets spilling from a hare’s womb. Full of potential magic, full of significance, full of taboo.

  Her expression darkened for a moment, before she added in a distant whisper, ‘But I see it grey, I see it running…’

  She would not elaborate on the cold image.

  The day had grown bright; the wind was strong but fresh. The air was fragrant with charring wood from the busy forges and the smouldering herbs from the fortress orchard grove, now being concealed again behind high wicker walls. The sound of drumming and singing drifted from the same direction. A shaft was being dug ready to take the trunk of a tree and the cleaned bones of a sacrificed horse. Since there had been no captives taken in the battle, their shades having dissolved into night and their dead unusable according to Cathabach, who knew about these things, a horse would have to be offered. It was a white and grey mare. She was already bridled and braided, and some of the children were decorating her with flowers and grasses under the watchful eyes of two mothers.

  Several other horses had been culled, those with broken limbs and deep wounds, and their flesh removed, to be prepared as food.

  By the well, the High Women had managed to summon something in human shape that shimmered and shifted in the air. They were busy rubbing the petals of yellow meadow flowers between their palms and holding their hands towards this elemental emanation from the earth. They were testing the efficacy of the old invocations, and the reliability of the source of water. They seemed pleased with what they were seeing. A manifestation of Nodons, god of healing, I was told discreetly by Manandoun.

  There was the murmur of joy in the air.

  All was returning to normal in Taurovinda.

  * * *

  Munda’s revelations weighed heavily on me for the rest of the day. I began to feel stifled in Taurovinda, trapped by the high walls, the bustle of people and animals and the choking smells. From the western ramparts I could look out across the marshes and forest to the distant hills that bordered the Land of the Shadows of Heroes, and I could feel the cool, fresh wind that blew from those hidden valleys.

  There was someone there I badly needed to see again; and a mystery I would have to solve if I was to escape the bond I now felt to Urtha.

  Where was Argo’s spirit boat? I called for her and she answered. She was lying in a shallow creek, some way away upriver. Hidden by tall reeds and drooping willows, she had been sleeping quietly, waiting for the moment when either Argo would come and find her, or I loosened my tie with her, allowing her to slip out of Alba, across the grey sea, to find the mother ship herself.

  Now she nudged from the reeds, turned into the current (I saw this in my mind’s eye, just briefly, before I withdrew from the contact) and began to make her way to the stone sanctuary by Nantosuelta, where we had camped before the battle. She would take a little while to get here.

  At dusk, the host of the Coritani settled down at two long tables, to talk, eat and drink, two fierce fires burning between the benches. In the king’s house, Urtha and the survivors of his own clan invited the chiefs of the Coritani and myself to sprawl and eat, and listen to stories for a while, mostly of the quest to Delphi, until the Speaker for the Past stepped into the centre of the ring and proceeded to rededicate the royal lodge to its rightful owner.

  This process took until the high of the night, an interminable incantation of tribal history, clan raids, cattle raids, strange births, falling stars, wild warriors, cunning women who had ruled in the past, foolish men who given away all that their fathers had gained.

  I was impressed with the phenomenal feat of memory shown by this clip-bearded, cropped-haired man of fifty years or so. His eyes never left the limbless tree that rose at the centre of the house, though he walked around it several times during his long description of the past generations of Taurovinda. Once in a while he struck the tree with a bone blade. At one point he urinated against the trunk, to the sound of rhythmic hand clapping from the gathered host. All part of the renewal process, apparently.

  Then the Speaker for Kings listed the dynasty that had preceded Urtha, from his grandfather, a man called Mordiergos, down to Durandond, the founder of this stronghold in Alba. Then, at seven generations, the name was that of a woman—Margomarnat—and then women’s names went far back, High Queens of the fallen citadel on the other side of the sea. The final names might have been from a time before Jason had been born in Greek Land. Each was mentioned in terms of her children, her girlhood, her first feat as ruler of the people, and the warlock who served her. The recital went on for ever, it seemed, but no one who listened seemed in the slightest bored.

  When he too was finished, with the fire still burning high, several of the men around me began to brag about their deeds, laughing and sneering at each other, throwing dirt and scraps of food to signal their disbelief.

  I’d seen this too often before and left them to it, bade Urtha a good night, and found shelter where I could sit and think and summon my strength.

  I had intended to leave at first light, but the druid known as Speaker for the Land began to call from above the Bull Gate. He was waving a staff of hazel rods, twisted together, a collcrac, and making a sound like a crow in between calls in a language that I suspected was an ancient dialect of Urtha’s own tongue, now obscure to all but these men of memory.

  It seemed the time was now propitious to bring in the bodies and limbs of the dead of our two hosts, from this attack and from Kymon’s failed assault. The gates were opened and twenty men rode down to the plain. Urtha called for me to come and help, bringing me a horse. I clambered into its rough saddle and followed. ‘We bring in what we can,’ he called to me. ‘Do you have the stomach for it, Merlin?’

  I laughed sourly. I had once watched Medea chop her brother into pieces whilst the boy screamed, casting the fragments into the sea to delay her father, a man raging at what he believed to be her abduction by Jason.

  Yes, I imagined I had the stomach for it.

  The crows had already gathered again. Urtha’s great hounds chased them off, leaping among the slow-flying carrion eaters and bringing them down, shaking their feathers and their lives across the field. I gathered up swords and shields, a few fragments of limbs. Urtha pulled the decaying body of Munremur across the withers of his own mount and returned slowly and sombrely to the nemeton at his stronghold’s heart. There, the wicker gates were pulled open by the druids and the bodies carried in, laid out on benches. The limbs of the newly dead were stiff, but would relax before long.

  When all the dead were inside the grove, the wicker gates were closed again. Before the rampart gates were shut and sealed, I had slipped down the road to the plain, following the ceremonial way back to the river. I had made the briefest farewell to Ambaros, who was very understanding. But Urtha was dismayed by my disappearance and rode out from the fort, thundering down the safe track, yelping and shouting my name like some newly blooded youth. I ran ahead of him, faster and faster. He had a small javelin held high above his head. Had the man gone mad?

  Bursting through the underbrush that bordered the river, frantically searching the stream for my small boat, Urtha circled round ahead of me, bare-chested, hair hanging free, galloping through the shallows and riding into the tree line. The javelin thudded into the trunk next to me, quivering, the grey feathers tied in a plume around its shaft shaking like a frightened bird.

  ‘You were a guest in my house. And you leave without telling me?’

  I had offended Urtha’s sense of courtesy. I suppose I should have known.

  ‘I need to leave. I told Ambaros. I didn’t leave without a word of goodbye.’

  He was not pacified. ‘Yes. Ambaros told me. But Kymon and Munda are deeply fond of you, the girl in
particular. When they find out, they’ll be distraught. You should have spoken to them.’

  ‘I spoke to Munda yesterday,’ I told him. ‘Your daughter is growing strong. She has the Light of Foresight. She began to develop it in Ghostland, and I intend to find how and why. That’s why I’m leaving.’

  He seemed genuinely disappointed and I reassured him that he had not seen the last of me.

  ‘But I’ve only just found you again!’ he complained bitterly. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword as he sat, staring down at me. ‘I trust you more than those men of oak. I trusted you from the moment you stepped into my tent, away in the Northland. And what am I to tell the Coritanian host? They’re eager to get back to their own fortress in case Ghostland attacks it next. I’ve assured them that you’re the greatest man of oak I’ve ever known, the wisest Speaker for the Future. It’s one of the reasons they are staying to assist at Taurovinda.’

  ‘Then you lied to them.’

  ‘I thought you were staying.’

  ‘I’m no man of oak. I’m a man of the Path. I’ve forgotten a thousand times more than your druids can remember, prodigious though their memory is.’

  ‘You’re going the wrong way for the Shadowlands,’ he insisted.

  ‘I have a small boat to take me there.’

  He laughed. ‘The river is flowing to the sea. Ghostland is upstream. And you’re not that good an oarsman, as I remember from Argo.’

  ‘This boat has a mind of its own,’ I said and he frowned.

  Urtha had challenged me. Now he shrugged, kicking his war-horse towards me, reaching out a hand to say goodbye as he passed, his eyes hard again.

  ‘Well, take care of yourself across in that place. I’m certain they haven’t finished with us. This is just the beginning.’

  ‘Indeed. Stay on your guard,’ I agreed with him. He was certainly right about the danger from Ghostland.

  ‘And the javelin is for you. The feathers were shed by one of the carrion eaters that fed on the enemy. I made it myself. It has a king’s blessing! You’ll know what to do or not to do with it, I expect.’