Pendragon

by James Wilde

  At the gate, Lucanus bowed his head in his own prayer. He had to believe. That Marcus was still alive. That he could be saved. That he could escape whatever held him out there in the dark.

  The barbarians had never done anything like this before. They came in waves, screaming, and hacking with their blades. Sneaking in to steal a boy was not their way. This was something new, and all the more worrying for it.

  The gates groaned open.

  For a moment he stood there, staring into the endless dark. The Wilds had been his home for as long as he could remember, but now his bones ached with a cold dread.

  One more step and he would cross the threshold. Behind him, the world of men. Ahead, a haunted country, home of daemons and gods and the Eaters of the Dead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Deal

  SOMEWHERE AN OWL screeched.

  ‘You have given me a night of such joy,’ Mato said as the mournful sound died away. He grasped Decima’s hand and kissed it, breathing in the strange spices from the unguents she massaged into her skin.

  They were standing under the torch on the doorstep of the House of Wishes. Despite the cold, the night seemed to sing, rich and clear, although that was probably just his romantic soul.

  The woman’s eyelashes fluttered down. He traced a finger along the dark skin of her cheeks, remembering how she’d told him about her journey from the hot lands far to the south, from Africa perhaps. She kept her secrets close, did Decima, but he imagined she was an escaped slave, perhaps one who had killed her master for the abuses he heaped upon her.

  ‘You are a kind man.’ Her hot breath bloomed on his ear. ‘If only there were more like you. Why, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a smile on your face.’ As she pressed close to him, Mato felt the hard edge of the knife she kept hidden in her dress, and he smiled. Innocent eyes, full lips and cold steel; a dangerous combination.

  Decima pulled his cloak tighter around him. ‘You must keep warm or you’ll catch your death. There’s no meat upon you.’ She slid her fingertips across his chest. ‘So tall and thin. Why, I would think in any battle you’d snap in two at the first blow.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m light on my feet, and faster than any man alive. I can always run to save my neck. Run like the wind.’

  The woman pressed the tip of her finger on the end of his nose. ‘You wouldn’t run. Your speed is matched only by your courage. Now go, before we both freeze. I’ll keep the bed warm for your next visit.’

  They kissed and Decima slipped back inside. Mato closed his eyes, sinking into the joy of the moment one last time, then whistled sharply. A figure separated from the dark among the clustering huts of the vicus.

  Comitinus was stamping his feet and rubbing his hands. Such a sullen expression. He was not in good spirits now the glow of the wine had faded.

  ‘Why wait out here in the cold? Amarina would have let you warm yourself by the hearth,’ Mato said.

  ‘And listen to the rest of you grunting like hogs and rattling the beds until it seemed the roof was collapsing?’

  ‘This is the price you pay for finishing too soon.’

  Comitinus wrinkled his nose at the taunt. ‘Why do you treat Decima as if she were your love? She’s only a whore. You are nothing more to her than a bag of gold.’

  ‘Only a whore? She’s a woman, Comitinus, and she spends her nights with foul, filthy, sweating men, slobbering and groping. She deserves our kindness, if not our pity. I’d rather crawl on my belly through a shit-reeking bog than do her job. Wouldn’t you?’

  The owl screeched again, overhead this time.

  The track through the vicus glittered in the moonlight, the smoke from the home-fires stinging the back of his throat. He cocked his head, listening to the music from behind the doors they passed: the grunts of love-making, the cry of a baby, snores so loud they sounded like a prowling beast.

  Mato came to a halt and raised his head to the sweep of stars. Comitinus looked round at him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘What wonders there are.’

  Comitinus stamped his feet even harder and muttered something Mato couldn’t hear.

  ‘When I was a boy, a god spoke to me. A god or a sprite, a nymph, a dryad … a messenger.’ In that moment Mato was back in the balmy warmth of the woods with the fireflies glimmering in the shadows, lying on his back in the grass. ‘Fourteen summers ago, it was, when you were little more than a babe. The great general Magnentius had rebelled against the Emperor Constans and conquered Britannia. You know your history?’

  ‘I’ve heard some,’ Comitinus replied, ‘and forgotten more. What use is it to us now?’

  ‘Be wise, brother, be wise,’ Mato cautioned with a smile. ‘Days long gone shape days yet to come. If you don’t know what has been, you will not be ready for what is yet to be.’

  Comitinus rubbed his thin wrists.

  ‘When Magnentius was defeated, an agent was sent to Britannia to crush any lingering support. Paulus Catena was his name, though they called him the Chain. I remember seeing him once, face like a hawk, eyes filled with hunger. A cruel man, hard as stone. But you don’t send a kindly man to crush resistance, eh?’

  ‘The Chain,’ Comitinus repeated, remembering. ‘I’ve heard of him. Blood everywhere.’

  ‘Blood everywhere. Innocent and guilty alike, common man and noble, hunted down and slaughtered to send a message that no resistance would be tolerated.’ Mato paused, surprised by the rush of emotion so long after the fact. ‘His men cut down my sister Aula. Ran her through on a sword and left her in the street, with her blood leaking from her. Eleven summers she’d seen.’

  ‘Oh.’ Comitinus’ voice was small. He let his arms fall by his side.

  ‘This life is a rushing river and we’re carried along by its flow. We make our plans, and shape our dreams, and pretend we have some control. We have none. A death like that … someone who had done no wrong, who had played no part in any resistance, who was merely wandering from her home to see what all the clamour was …’ Mato shook his head. ‘I found her there, after the men had ridden on, and I held her in my arms as her life ebbed away. After that, the world is not the same. The sun shines, but it is not the sun. The wind blows, but it is not the wind. There’s no sense to any of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear this.’

  Mato closed his eyes, remembering. ‘It was the night of midsummer. I was filled with such grief I thought it would take me too. There was talk among the old folk that if you went into the woods at that time, you’d see those you loved who had crossed over to the Summerlands … see them one last time to say your goodbyes and to hear what message they had for you. I didn’t believe, even as a boy, but I hoped. Do you understand that? How you can not believe, but still hope? And I so desperately wanted to see Aula one last time.’

  ‘And did you see her?’

  ‘No. Not Aula. But still …’ Mato tried to find the words. ‘In my grief I couldn’t tell, but there was magic in the air. I had a sudden sense that there were people in the trees around me, a vast multitude. But when I opened my eyes no one was there. And then I heard the words in my head and in my heart.’

  ‘What words?’ Comitinus had stopped stamping his feet.

  ‘I cannot say.’ Mato opened his eyes and looked at the other man, smiling. ‘They were for me alone. But they were a truth, and they made me see the world through different eyes.’

  ‘You saw nothing. You heard the words in your head. You are mad.’

  ‘Grief drives men to madness, that’s true.’ Perhaps it had been a dream, a wild vision of a boy who had lost his wits. It hardly mattered. It was still a truth. ‘Britannia is filled with sprites and gods, watching and waiting. Listen, Comitinus. Use your eyes. Become wise. Know this: we’re surrounded by death, but there’s joy everywhere.’

  ‘When I was up to my neck in that bog with the rats coming closer, I didn’t see much joy. We’re scouts, not priests.’

  ‘We’re both. We live with death at ou
r heels every day. We walk between two worlds, we wolf-brothers, like priests. The world of men and the world of the Wilds, the world of gods and magic. Men here have no time to pay attention to what’s around them. They hunger for gold, but that hunger turns them to lead. We’ve been freed from that life, little brother. We can listen to the whispers of the wind and the voices of the birds and we can hear the gods speak through them. Look around you. There’s magic everywhere, if only you’d see it. Nothing is as it seems. A wise man would look past the surface and see the truth beneath.’

  ‘You’re still drunk. Or still mad.’

  Another owl shrieked as it swooped overhead and Mato felt a shadow fall across him. ‘Three screeches. That’s an omen.’

  ‘Omens, now. Are you priest or scout? Decide now, Mato. I would like to know for the next time I have you watching my back in the Wilds.’

  ‘Both. Neither.’ Mato looked back across the township to the walls of the fort. His neck was prickling, a familiar sign, and there was a weight in the air, like the feeling before a summer storm. Vercovicium was quiet, but he saw three torches more than usual flickering along the wall.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I need to find Lucanus.’

  Before Comitinus could reply, Mato was loping back along the track to the fort. He’d already forgotten his wolf-brother, and left him far behind by the time he slipped through the gate and headed for the Principia. Comitinus caught up with him there, his breathing ragged.

  Raucous conversation echoed from the centurion’s room, punctuated by bursts of laughter. Mato pressed a finger to his lips and crept up to the door. He recognized the voices of Falx and the husband of Lucanus’ friend Catia. Amatius’ voice was pitched higher than most men’s, as if he were always on the brink of laughter.

  ‘Then we are agreed. This deal will seal our fortune,’ Falx was saying. ‘When the great merchant Lucius Sentius Varro arrives, will we see a river of gold streaming along the Stanegate, I wonder?’ The centurion laughed long and hard.

  ‘He’s been in the west, arranging to ship tin back to Rome?’ Amatius said.

  ‘Aye, and in Londinium and Verulamium and Ratae and Mamucium too. He has more riches than you would see in ten lifetimes, and still he wants more.’

  ‘And we are just the men to help him achieve his dreams.’

  Mato jumped as angry voices echoed from outside the Principia. Grabbing Comitinus, he shoved him into the adjoining room. A moment later braided hair and tattoos and fierce expressions blurred past the door. Motius and the Carrion Crows crashed into the centurion’s room, bellowing.

  Through the din, he heard Falx roaring, ‘Are you mad? I could have your heads for this.’

  ‘You think it wise to make enemies of the arcani?’ Motius’ voice cracked with emotion. ‘We’re like ghosts. You hear and see nothing. And then death is upon you.’

  ‘You dare threaten me? Guards!’

  Mato’s hand fell to his sword, unsure if he should intervene.

  ‘Wait.’ It was Amatius’ voice. ‘Stay your hands. What ails you?’

  ‘This one steals the coin that is meant for our purse,’ Motius said.

  ‘Lies,’ Falx snapped.

  ‘Gold, wine, anything of value … strange how it all goes astray when it passes through Vercovicium,’ Motius sneered. ‘We are sick of it. We risk our necks every day and we are as nothing to you. We’ve had our fill!’

  Mato heard the sound of more running feet. The guards had heard the disturbance.

  ‘This is a warning,’ Motius snarled. ‘If we don’t get our dues, there will be blood to pay.’

  The Carrion Crows hurried away before the guards arrived. In the lull that followed, Mato heard Amatius whisper, ‘Now, more than ever, we need what Varro is offering.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Arrival

  ‘HO!’ BELLICUS’ VOICE boomed over the throb of life in the vicus.

  In his long leather apron, Ovincus stooped over his table outside his workshop, a half-butchered carcass in front of him, his cleaver embedded in the meat. He was tearing the ribs apart with his red-stained hands. Blood dripped from the table edge into the ditch that carried it straight to the drains.

  ‘You still live, then?’ Ovincus threw back his head and laughed, even though he said the same thing every time Bellicus returned from a sojourn in the Wilds. ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting Catulus?’ He whistled and a dog bounded out of the shadows of his workshop.

  Bellicus crouched to greet it. The hound ran in rings round him before falling on its back. It was an Agassian, small, slender and shaggy-haired, but fast enough to bring down a deer, and fangs sharp enough to rend through flesh.

  ‘He’s been well fed,’ Ovincus said. ‘Too well fed, with scraps from the table. Bring him back when next you go. It’s too quiet without him.’

  ‘You should get your own dog,’ Bellicus called as he walked away.

  ‘Too much work. I’d rather have one that visits from time to time.’

  Back at his hut, Bellicus slumped on his bed and smiled as he watched Catulus investigating the scents along the walls. ‘You’ll be with Ovincus by nightfall, and more pampering,’ he murmured. ‘But when I’m back we will go out hunting, you have my word.’

  Catulus did a circuit of the hut and flopped down beside the bed.

  Bellicus looked down at the hairs of his red beard, spread out on his chest. When he saw that colour he could think only of the fire that night, flickering in the dark, far beyond the wall.

  ‘There is no good in me, Catulus,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘I have blood on my hands and a black rot in my heart. But you know that. You’ve heard it a hundred times. More. And now you’ll hear it again.’

  The fire blazing in the night. A beacon, one that still lit the road from then to now, much as he did not want to walk it.

  ‘There were two of us. We’d scouted towards the west until we could smell the salt in the air. The land was empty and we were on our way home so we made camp on a crag above a river valley and drank a skin of wine between us. I can be a foul drunk, Catulus. I’m not proud of that. Sometimes I fly with the birds and sing with them too, but if worries or doubts or fears eat away at me, I can be a sour bastard. That night I was sour.’

  Bellicus opened his eyes and stared into the shadows among the rafters. His bones ached from the chill. Perhaps he was getting old. He dropped a hand down until he found Catulus’ head and scrubbed his fur.

  ‘We’d been arguing, he and I, about a woman, as is usually the case. I was a fool, then, but still too old to be a young fool. I should have known better, but she’d stolen my heart. And yet she was more interested in him. Jealousy ate away at me like a sickness. I think I went mad for a while, eh, boy? Mad. That’s no excuse, though. So we sat by the fire and drank and talked and drank and talked, about the woman. And then we argued, until, finally, we came to blows. I remember … I remember …’ He closed his eyes, the vision of that night rushing back with queasy familiarity. ‘My fist, crashing into his thick skull, again and again. My knuckles splitting. Blood flying. His and mine. For a while, I was lost to my rage. Then my eyes cleared.’

  Bellicus swallowed. It sounded too loud in that still, cold room.

  ‘I couldn’t recognize who swayed before me. The face of the man I’d called friend … best friend, for many a year … was a mask of blood. I don’t know if he would have survived that night … perhaps not. But then he staggered back, and back. Over the crag.’ Bellicus fell silent for a long moment. ‘I clambered down, but it was too dark to see anything. Still, I searched the riverbank till dawn, feeling with my hands, but there was no hope. He’d gone into the water and been washed away. The next morning I found blood on rocks at the river’s edge. I killed him, Catulus. I murdered my best friend.’

  The dog twitched, sniffed the air.

  ‘I murdered Lucanus’ father. And I’m too much a coward to confess my sin to the man I now call leader. This is what I’ve become, a shadow, a hal
f-a-man, limping towards death, consumed by his own weakness. I’ve done what I can to be the father Lucanus lost, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough. And now he’s gone off into the Wilds alone and we may never see him again.’ Bellicus closed his eyes again, listening to the thump of blood in his head. ‘You have heard this tale before, Catulus. You’ll hear it again.’

  After a long moment, he heaved himself to his feet and found the pouch of coins under the stone in front of the hearth. Stooping under the door jamb, he heard Catulus scamper at his heels as he walked out into the vicus.

  On the narrow track by the tavern he found the widow Elsia outside her home, her dress speckled with flour, her face as drawn as it had always been since her husband had died. Bellicus pressed a coin into her palm as he passed.

  ‘Thank you,’ she called after him. He could hear her voice breaking.

  ‘Go back to your oven, old wife,’ he shouted back, in case she should chase him to thank him more.

  Bellicus flipped another coin into the lap of a beggar who had lost a leg during a battle with the barbarians, and a third went to a young couple – he didn’t know their names – who had welcomed a new baby only a week before.

  The father looked shocked when he held the coin up to the light. ‘Why?’

  ‘My belly is full, I have all the wine and ale a man could want – what need have I of gold?’ Bellicus grumbled, not meeting their eyes. ‘It only makes me prey for thieves and fills my home with things I have no time to use.’

  As he strode on, Comitinus ambled up calling his name. ‘We have visitors,’ he said. ‘Three wagons and men on horseback coming along the Stanegate from the west.’

  ‘That merchant Falx and Amatius were so intent on meeting?’

  ‘I’d think it likely. Who else would be travelling to this forsaken part of the empire? If you have nothing better to do, let us watch the arrival.’