When First I Met My King: Book One in the Arthur Trilogy

by Harper Fox

  Lance yawned hugely, causing Art to chuckle and prod him. “Sorry. It’s not that I’m not interested—”

  “In my geology lesson? I should hope not. The point of all this is, though, that Ector says your sword was ex calce liberatus, freed from the stone. And the Merlin said the sword would be named Excalibur.”

  Another helpless yawn. “That’s right.”

  “What? You know this already?”

  Lance surfaced from the shallow, sunlit waters that fringed the edges of sleep. Excalibur... The word and its strange, blood-deep familiarity dropped away from him into dream’s ocean as he opened his eyes. “Not... Not in any way I can explain. But that’s right. The sword is called Excalibur.”

  “By all the gods! Don’t tell Ector, or he’ll have us both up all night with his myths and prophecies.”

  “It’s still just a rusted old chieftain’s sword that’s lain in the mud for who knows how long. What you’ve given me is worth a king’s ransom.”

  “All the more reason for you to keep it. You might have to ransom me one day. At any rate, you can use it down in Dumnonia, when Ector’s sergeant-at-arms starts to give you proper lessons, and...”

  Arthur faded out. Lance, sitting up, could only stare at him in fraught silence, and there was no hiding from the truth anymore. “Oh, Lance,” Art said at last. “Oh, no.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The day was barely past dawn, but the party from the south were almost ready to ride. The grooms were loading up the horses, checking tack and buckles. Ectorius, Art and Guy were waiting out these final preparations in the chilly courtyard outside the praetorium. Ector, fully aware of his foster son’s restless pain, had set him to sword drills, thinking he could do no better with the poor lad than distract him.

  “No,” he cried, as Art missed an easy thrust from his brother. “Guy would have had the guts out of you there. Lift your arm. Keep your weight on your back foot. Concentrate!”

  “Perhaps if you let me use Excalibur—my destiny-appointed blade,” Art returned breathlessly, “and not this blunt-edged toy...”

  “You may bear Excalibur as you did your sword of ceremony, and not otherwise.”

  “Really?” Art squared up to his brother, who was edging round him, looking for his next avenue of attack. “On your guard, Gaius! May I not bear it in whichever battle it is where I’m supposed to spill out my lonely, stupid, useless little life in order to save my people, or whatever miserable fate it is the Merlin has spelled out for me?”

  “Arthur Pendragon!”

  The boy turned red with contrition. He put up his blade, and Guy mirrored the gesture, stepping back from him. Poor Guy’s face was creased with a mixture of annoyance and sympathy. “Forgive me, Father,” Art said. “I didn’t mean to speak to you so.”

  “I know you didn’t.” Ector eased up stiffly from the mounting block where he’d been sitting. He went to the frowning lad, who was clearly fighting tears, and put a hand to his shoulder. “What are the qualities I have taught you to seek most earnestly in your companions?”

  “A strong arm. Nerves of iron, ready for the fight. Lance has all that and more.”

  “Arthur.”

  He sighed, slid his practice sword into its sheath. “Loyalty. Quickness of vision to see the needs of others, and to put them ahead of his own.”

  “So...”

  “So the very traits I most need and admire are those which hold him here.” He looked at the ground, scuffed one impatient foot over the hard-packed earth. “My lesson is humbly received, Father Ector.”

  Humbly, my rear end! Well, as long as it is received. “No-one said you had to like it. You will be a king soon. It becomes you to try hard to get what you want. However, when you fail, it also becomes you to act with grace towards those who’ve baulked you.”

  “I have, damn it.” He met Ector’s eyes, his own clouded with necessity and pain. “I will.”

  “Not just Lance, either.” Ector looked across the yard at Father Tomas, hovering anxiously on the edge of the bustle of men and horses. “That old priest can’t be left alone to guard this place against another Pictish attack.”

  “He wouldn’t be!” Art burst out impatiently. “If that’s what he’s said to Lance, it isn’t true. There’s farmers here, blacksmiths, strong field-hands. With a little training at arms—”

  “None of those blacksmiths and farmers are leaders of men,” Ector interrupted him. “You of all people must understand the difference. And as for what old Tomas may or may not have said—you must also know that Lance will have made his own decision.”

  “Lance couldn’t guard the place either, not now. He can hardly walk.”

  “That’s why I’m leaving Marcus with him.” Ector nodded to the burly, crop-headed groom holding Hengroen by the rein. “For a month at least, or until Lance is well enough to take his rightful place here again, as his father’s son and a true prince. Put your chin up, Art. Here he comes.”

  Ruefully Ector surveyed Art’s rumpled hair, the marks of sleeplessness and sorrow beneath his eyes. Lance, whatever effort it had cost him, was freshly turned out in a clean shirt, his spine as straight as his limping progress across the courtyard would allow. “You could take a lesson from this friend of yours, my Bear. Go to him now. Tell him he may keep Balana.”

  “For... For a month, like Marcus?”

  “No. As his own horse.” Art’s jaw dropped, and Ector shook his head. “Yes, it will cost me dearly to leave her. But I have my reasons. Go on.”

  He watched while the boy obeyed him. He saw Lance turn white, then red, then look longingly at Balana. He gave Art a fleeting smile of such sweetness that the old man understood with new poignancy what was causing his ward to grieve on this day of departure, and briefly spoke to him. Then Art returned, his own spine very straight, his bearing as soldierly as Ector could wish. “Lance thanks you with all his heart, but says he cannot keep the horse.”

  “Is he worried about her upkeep? Because I can leave some gold with him too, if—”

  “It isn’t that. He’s afraid there may be another famine.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Art cleared his throat and looked at the ground. “It seems that he and the villagers had to eat his last horse.”

  “Oh.” The two exchanged a glance, in startled acknowledgement of what this moorland prince had endured. Then Ector recovered his poise. “Listen, Art. Put your trust in time. I’m sorry you’ve grown up in such a blasted thorn-patch of myths and prophecies, but the good side is this—the Merlin said you have all kinds of wonders to achieve before you die.”

  “And so far I’ve done nothing.”

  “I wouldn’t put it so harshly, but... well, I’m happy to think we aren’t about to lose you just yet. And whatever unnatural winter has plagued this land, it’s gone. They won’t have another like it.”

  “How can you know such a thing?”

  “Because of the blasted myths and prophecies. You have achieved one of your wonders. The blighted land shall blossom in the wake of the future king.” Art’s face became such a picture that Ector began to laugh. “Don’t look so thunderstruck, boy—it’s just as your brother likes to tease you. The sun really does shine out of your royal behind.”

  ***

  “He’s not taking no for an answer. You’ll have to keep the damn horse. Just try not to eat her, that’s all.”

  “I swear it.”

  Arthur had taken the reins from Marcus and put them into Lance’s hand. The groom had gone to hold Sir Ector’s horse by the mounting block, and Balana, as if kindly disposed to her new master, had swung her broad flank to shield him and Arthur from the rest of the yard.

  Arthur took Lance’s face between his hands. He kissed him: gently, thoroughly, full on the mouth, tasting of promises and salt. “I will write to you.”

  Lance stared at him. The salt had been from his own tears. Fiercely he scrubbed them away. “I can’t bloody read.”r />
  “You have a priest, haven’t you?” Art shot one savage glance in Tomas’s direction. “What use are they, if not for teaching? Bloody well learn.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  One day in autumn, just as the fields had been scythed of the last of their gold, a letter arrived in the village.

  Like all such messages, this one had reached its destination by a mixture of goodwill and pure chance. The drover who’d brought it from Pons Aelius had never seen such a thing before: five thin squares of birch bark, neatly tied with leather, the knot encased in a crimson wax seal. He’d thrown it into his horse’s pack, where over the next five days it had become buried beneath the farrier’s tools, sheep cures and packages of herbs he’d purchased on his journey to sell, along with his flock, in the market at Caer Lir.

  Lance stood thigh-deep in sheep. He was making rapid calculations. The summer had been long and dry, the barley crop good. The drover had two fine rams amongst his ewes. Allowing for the winter needs of the village, for bread and the seeds of next year’s crop... “Give me one of those tups, Bryn, and by the time you get back from the west, I’ll have six bags of grain for you.”

  The drover scratched his head. He’d known Lance for many years. He’d heard about the Pictish raid and was sorry for the lad, although at a glance, the vicus seemed tidier and better organised than ever it had been in Ban’s time. Still, business was business. “What, one of my white-faced hornless, still as pure as the day they stepped off the Roman ships?”

  “That’s right. They breed well with our little brown soays, and the lambs give good wool and meat and are tough enough to survive up here. What do you say?”

  “Ten bags.”

  “Seven.”

  “Lad, you’ll have a beast in the flesh, while I have to hope that no raiders come to burn your barns, fine and...” The drover shielded his eyes to peer through the open door of the nearest building. “Fine and full as they are. Your soays look half-decent, too. How did you come by so many?”

  The boy’s face clouded. “They were a gift. From friends who saw that our fields were almost empty after the long winter.” He pushed the shadows aside. “Come on, Bryn. You won’t find better grain between here and the coast.”

  “Nine bags.”

  “Eight bags.”

  “Done. And because it’s you, I’ll throw in this cure for the bloat from the cunning woman down in Rivers Meet. Never been known to fail, the old girl says.” He reached deep into his saddle pack. “Oh, and... this thing, too. One of the old boys still holding on at Pons Aelius fort said it should go to you, or someone at White Meadows, anyway.”

  Lance took the leatherbound package from Bryn’s hand. He blew wisps of wool and grain-dust off it, turned it into the bright morning sun. “Tertius,” he said, squinting at the scrawl of fading ink on the uppermost leaf. “Tertius, filius Bani, rex Vindolandae.” He looked up in wonder. “Tertius, son of Ban, king of Vindolanda. That’s me!”

  Bryn looked him over doubtfully. He was dressed for a hard day in the fields, and one of the ewes was chewing contentedly at the hem of his tunic. “If you say so. What do you think it is, then?”

  “Why, it’s an epistola. A letter.”

  Bryn had travelled many times along the line of the old Wall, and felt he knew a thing or two. “Bless you, no. You get your epistolas on parchment, don’t you? Or vellum, if it’s definitely calfskin.”

  “There’s too many uses for animal hides to leave much over for writing. The soldiers stationed here used strips of birch, my father said. Who did you say gave this to you?”

  “One of the old Batavian lads. I know him well—soldiered here so long he couldn’t be bothered to go home when the rest of them did. Besides, he has a wife and bairns, and he says the weather’s not that much worse here than—”

  “Yes, I see. But who gave it to him?”

  “The skipper of a trading boat from Londinium, he said. And he had it from a tin merchant all the way from Cerniw, he claimed, although that must be a story.”

  “Why?”

  Bryn shook his head pityingly. “Everyone knows the Cerniw tin comes from dragons. They lay it with their eggs, and burn up any man foolish enough to come near them with their fiery breath.”

  Lance seemed delighted by this information, or by something. He was ablaze with joy, and suddenly looked like the son of a king despite the mud in his hair. He thrust up a hand, took hold of Bryn’s and shook it vigorously. “Thank you for this. Thank you!”

  He turned away. Bryn frowned in confusion. “Here,” he called after him. “Don’t you want your tup?”

  “What? Oh! Yes, of course.” He beckoned to one of the workers in the nearest field, who climbed the wall and began to make his way through the bleating flock. Then he put his hand to his chest, and offered the drover a shy, formal bow. “You must stop for a while. Water your beasts, and if you go to the kitchen, my housekeeper Edern will give you a meal and some wine.”

  Bryn raised an eyebrow. The last time he’d passed through here, this boy had been a lanky-limbed pup, barely distinguishable from the rest of the litter. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said, but if Lance heard, he gave no sign. He was walking away, absently pushing the sheep to one side, the birch-strip letter cradled reverently in his free hand.

  ***

  “Father Tomas! I need your help.”

  “You do indeed, child, or the kingdom of heaven is closed to you. Have you come to me to shrive your heathen soul?”

  “Er... no. Not exactly.” A pile of Roman epistolary birch-strips landed on the page Tomas was reading, obscuring the text. “I need you to read these.”

  Tomas sat up. His back was aching, his eyes sore. He’d been oblivious to these bodily discomforts all the time he’d been left undisturbed with the satisfying story of God’s vengeance at Gomorrah. “Why must you pester me? Don’t you have work about the farm?”

  “I do, but I’ve had...” Lance tailed off to catch his breath. “I’ve had a letter, and I can’t read it. Please.”

  “Can’t read it? Have I not, by your own most unexpected request, spent hours every night instructing you?”

  “Yes, you have. But he... Arthur doesn’t write like the scribes who made your books.”

  “This letter is from the prince?”

  “It is. It’s from the prince, to me. Please, Father.”

  “The prince was very kind during his visit. His foster father Ectorius paid me particular kindly attention. I shall always remember it.”

  The bible was laid out on Tomas’s little lectern, in the draught-free corner of the chapel where he liked to retreat at sunny noontides. A shameful indulgence, he supposed, but the chapel’s one window was filled with blue-green Roman glass, and the warmth and the underwater shimmer of the light was soothing to the flesh and the mind. Tomas gave a croak of dismay as bible, birch and lectern disappeared, to be replaced a moment later by Lance himself, passionately kneeling at his feet.

  The croak became a dried-up laugh. “Miracles in our days! That’s the first time your stubborn knees have bent in this place.”

  “I know. I don’t understand the things you preach, Father, and I don’t think I ever will. Don’t make me say I’ll come here and kneel and pretend, because I will, if that’s what I have to do.”

  “Of course not. Of what value would that be to me?” Tomas examined the first of the birch strips. “The prince writes in a courtly hand.”

  “Oh, no. Can’t you read it either?”

  “Insolent! You think I’ve had no dealings with courtly men? I was at the shrine of Brocolitia, you know, after—”

  “After the Emperor Theodosius ordered the temple of Mithras there destroyed. Yes, I know. Is this how they wrote, then—the learned men you knew there?”

  “Hmm. A little.” Tomas turned the strip sideways, then upside down. “This is what I would call a very free hand, but it’s befitting to someone of the prince’s station. Carissime Tertie, he begins. That’s you,
Lance, and he properly refers to you by your formal name. Tertie is the vocative singular of Tertius, although carissime—most dear—is very informal indeed. Hmm.”

  “Really? Most dear?”

  “And he goes on, quamquam semper Lance meum...”

  “He says I’ll always be Lance to him?”

  “My Lance, to be accurate. My Lance, who became plus quam frater...” Tomas looked up, storm clouds beginning to gather on his brow. “Who became my more-than-brother on the shore of the lake?!”

  Lance smiled helplessly. “Well, you know Art. He’s very affectionate.”

  “And again, upon that... lectum... Well-remembered bed?!” Tomas sprang to his feet. With the energy of a much younger man, he strode to the corner where he kept his rod of punishment. He hadn’t dared lift it to Elena’s one surviving child, not after the prince of Cerniw had come and gone and left the boy cloaked in his new adulthood, but enough was enough. “Heinous brat!” he rasped. “Spawn of corruption! There’s better use for birch than the scrawling of such monstrous tales. Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman! Thou shalt not...”

  Lance jumped out of his reach. He grabbed the birch strip Tomas had dropped, gathered up the others and clutched them to his wicked heart. Unpredictably, he was laughing, not with mockery but a kind of pure joy. He leapt beyond the sweep of Tomas’s rod and bolted for the chapel door.

  Tomas gave chase. It was beneath his dignity, but this was a special occasion. More than brother, on the lake shores and in the bed! He didn’t much care if he saved the wretched boy’s sacred soul or whaled it out of him. Corruption! The lusts of the flesh, shamelessly written in ink for all eyes to see! Lance, whose leg had healed nicely, was running at full pelt across the stable yard, causing Balana to stretch her head out of her stall and whinny a greeting. He seized a low-hanging gutter, made an improbable leap and vaulted up onto the terracotta tiles of the roof.