Dark North (Malory's Knights of Albion)

by Paul Finch

  They assessed the town of Dol, to which only minor damage had been done, and rounded up the small groups of freebooters who had either crawled there with burns and arrow wounds, or had simply stayed behind to cower in sheds and stables. It did not take long to establish that those most responsible for the path of destruction had headed north. Gawaine was thus to take the infantry and escort Priamus across the border and northeast to Paris, while Lancelot mounted a pursuit.

  By Lancelot’s estimation, the freebooters still in harness numbered between six and seven hundred. But they were easy enough to track – by the trail of items they discarded to lighten their load. Some even abandoned their loot.

  BUT NOT SIR Turgeis of Coutrances.

  The Jackal of the Southeast was master of a cavalcade of twenty wagons, each crammed to the brim with sacks of coin and silver plate. He would not release a single spoon, and so he and his party lagged dangerously behind the rest. Perhaps it was no surprise when, around mid-day, an arrow struck him in the back, pierced his habergeon and severed his spine. He fell from his horse, twisted and paralysed. His underlings, who saw this as a double opportunity – both to lighten their load and to enrich themselves – ignored him. He wept and pleaded until a wagon wheel passed across his body, crushing his ribcage.

  Baroni Benevento, fearing more for his skin than his ill-accrued wealth, abandoned his haul altogether, and rode east, accompanied only by his most loyal bodyguards: eight raw-boned Danes who had never yet failed him. But like their master, these doughty fellows also had survival instincts. Hoping to curry favour with their pursuers, they tied the disgraced merchant to an alder tree, where they used him for axe-throwing practice. When a band of Lancelot’s mounted archers rode up it was all over for Benevento, and his former bodyguard willingly laid down their arms and went into custody.

  The others, who had chosen to remain close to Gorlon, made it as far as the coast. It was believed that Mont St. Michel, the island stronghold, could be made defensible and that, as King Arthur and his army would soon have bigger fish to fry, they might, if they proved defiant enough, be left alone.

  Not so.

  When Gorlon crested the last rise, he found the strait between the coast of France and his island-home hosting several vessels, including one particularly large galleass, at whose prow and stern the timber castles were draped with flags bearing Arthur’s dragon standard. Smoke unfurled from the black barge that normally transported the ogre captain to and from his island, as it burned at its mooring.

  Along the beach from both sides, knights and men-at-arms cantered with lances levelled. On the skyline at Gorlon’s back, Lancelot appeared with his men.

  Close to the water’s edge, a royal pavilion had been pitched. Banners and shields hung alongside it. More squadrons of armoured horsemen were mounted to its rear. In front, there was a table at which was seated a man in full mail with burnished steel roundels at his joints and a handsome white and scarlet surcoat belted at his waist. He barely acknowledged Gorlon’s arrival as he dined on brisket, sweet-peas, onions and carrots. With his mail aventail pulled back and the sun embossing his light-brown hair, this could only be King Arthur himself. The two knights flanking him – Sir Bedivere and Sir Kay – were less relaxed, with visors down and longswords drawn.

  Not that further fighting was in any way likely. With the forces of Albion circling them, the remaining freebooters could do nothing more than disarm themselves, though one – Darra O’Lug – attempted to break for it, galloping at a gap which briefly appeared in the enemy ranks. He made it through, but was pursued and caught easily from behind, a longsword cleaving his tonsured cranium at a single stroke.

  At length the King stood and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. He approached Gorlon on foot. “They told us you were coming. We so hoped we hadn’t missed you.”

  Gorlon twisted his tusked mouth into a hideous, sneering smile. He said nothing as he and his men were put in chains and led away.

  “Prisoners?” Arthur asked, as Lancelot dismounted.

  “A handful slipped through our fingers, but I’d say just short of two thousand.”

  Arthur stroked his beard.

  “Too many to hang,” Bedivere observed.

  “I agree,” Arthur said. “I’ll settle for having them all castrated. But not our friend Gorlon. A real example must be made of him.”

  THE DESTRUCTION OF the free-companies was not the end of Arthur’s campaign in Brittany.

  It was around this time that Emperor Lucius was victorious at Nantes. He finally persuaded the city to yield when, at great cost to himself both in time and money, he ordered the construction of thirty siege-towers, including a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot helepolis,24 each of its four levels armed with three catapults and three arbalest. With their ramparts broken, what remained of the garrison raised a white flag rather than face an onslaught of this magnitude. Emperor Lucius took the surrender in a grand ceremony, only to discover halfway through that King Hoel had escaped weeks earlier and, even now, was raising new forces.

  The Emperor was so enraged that he failed to speak for the remainder of that day. Only the following morning had he regained his equilibrium. He emerged from his pavilion and issued orders that one-third of his forces were to advance into Brittany, two army-groups of thirty thousand each to invest the castles of Fougeres and Vitre, the rest to march through the centre of the kingdom, ultimately to attack Brest. All this time, of course, the bulk of King Arthur’s forces were coming ashore, not in Brittany but in France, north of Mont St. Michel, far beyond the range of Roman scouts.

  It was therefore even more of a shock for Lucius, still quartered on the Loire, when his breakfast was interrupted by the news that his significantly reduced encampment was being approached – not from the west, as he’d expected, but from the north. When he enquired who by, he was speechless to learn that it was King Arthur and his entire host.

  Sixteen

  BISHOP MALCONI MADE his summer residence in a place that had once been famous for atrocity, a formerly ruined coastal villa called Jovis, which he’d had refurbished with frescoes, marble statues and handsome mosaic floors. It occupied a high point, Mount Tiberio, on the northeast tip of the island of Capri. Bishop Malconi had first purchased the building because he valued his privacy – the local peasants were too wary of its evil reputation to come anywhere near. Some four centuries earlier, Emperor Tiberius, wearied by the cutthroat politics of Rome, had sought refuge here and, according to some, had come to lead a debauched lifestyle, indulging in every kind of sexual perversion and executing any person he took against in elaborately cruel and inventive ways.

  Malconi was unconcerned by this grim history. He had his blue sky, his turquoise sea, and below his bedroom window a picturesque view of rolling valleys, their steep slopes clad with cypress, poplar and cork-oaks through which the occasional glimpse of honey-coloured stone revealed the presence of fallen columns and overgrown arches. The restful isolation he found here was broken only by his exclusively male household, who went about their allotted tasks with quiet and unobtrusive efficiency.

  However, it was not unknown for Malconi to receive visitors at Villa Jovis.

  It was early in July when a heavy carriage of glossy black enamel, covered all over with rich gilded sculptures of tumbling foliage and fabulous beasts, laboured its way up the winding, dusty track to the villa gate. A team of eight straining horses drew it, for the vehicle was truly immense – a party of several men and women could have found comfort inside. The driver was a virtual colossus, swathed in crimson hessian robes with a cowl pulled low. His head, though hidden from view, was huge and square, and he was as broad as an ox.

  The gates at Villa Jovis were occupied by a squad of ten security officials, who had been selected from the ranks of New Rome’s military for their skill and ruthlessness. Even in the basting mid-summer heat, all wore uniform ensemble of sallet, chain-mail and a leather hauberk studded with steel balls, and were armed with broadswords, wh
ich they carried in scabbards on their backs, and any other implement they excelled in, be it flail, mace or war-hammer. Ordinarily, no visitor would pass the villa’s wrought-iron gate without enduring a menacing scrutiny from these handpicked guard-dogs, but the sight of the black carriage and its crimson-shrouded driver was enough to bring them scurrying from their posts.

  There was a clanking of chains and a creaking of well-oiled steel as the central bolt was withdrawn and padlocks removed. The gate swung open and the carriage was admitted, coming to a halt in a gravelled reception area, where a young groom in a sweat-stained blouse rushed forward to assist with the horses. The crimson-clad driver stepped down – at full height, he was close on eight feet tall – and opened the carriage door. Though a giant and monster in every way, he showed great deference to the passenger who stepped out.

  She too was tall – easily the height of a man, but with the perfect proportions of womankind. She was of indeterminate age – anywhere between thirty and fifty – yet there wasn’t so much as a crow’s foot on her flawless, porcelain-white skin. Her hair was black as bramble-wood and, though bound at the rear in a copper coronet, hung to the small of her back in lustrous, liquid tangles. Her beauty was of the patrician class – fierce and proud, but with more than a hint of feline menace. She had full blood-red lips, high sharp cheekbones and eyes of iridescent green, enhanced by deep slashes of purple-grey shadow. She wore a sleeveless shift of flimsy green cloth, belted at the waist by a slim chain, which did little to conceal the statuesque body beneath. Her fingernails were long and sharp and lacquered emerald, her hands encrusted with jewellery of exotic design, the gold stems of which twined up around her arms as high as her shoulders.

  She strode across the reception area and up a paved path between rockeries and spiny cacti, the wooden block-heels of her sandals clopping like hooves. As she approached the villa’s heavy ash door, it was opened by a bronzed young man with dark-blond locks over his handsome, boyish face. He was wearing an indecently short toga.

  “Duchess?” he said, surprised.

  “Is your master at home?” she asked.

  “Of course, ma’am. Forgive me, I wasn’t expecting...”

  “Stand aside.”

  She strode purposely through the entry hall and a connected succession of apartments. In all of them, young male staff busied themselves with household chores, giving her only passing interest. She crossed the atrium, where a small herb garden was open to the elements. A husky, bearded gardener, again wearing only a sleeveless, short-skirted toga which exposed his brawny, sun-browned limbs, was working with a hoe. Beyond the garden, a narrow avenue between clipped hedges led to an open terrace overlooking the Gulf of Naples. It was usually awash with cooling sea-breezes, but at the height of the day, as now, the sun beat mercilessly on it. At one end lay a small bathing-pool, in which another young man, this one naked, stood thigh-deep, scooping out insects with a net. The duchess briefly regarded his exposed appendage, unimpressed, before continuing along the terrace to its far end, where a canopy had been raised, beneath which Bishop Malconi, wearing only a thin shift, reclined on a divan. There was a damp towel over his face, and to one side a stool bore a bowl of figs and clotted cream, and a goblet of iced water. Another young man, wearing a loincloth so flimsy as to be pointless, crouched at the bishop’s feet, tending to them with a brush and a pair of delicate nail-scissors.

  The duchess hissed at the servant, who stood, bowed and withdrew. Bishop Malconi made no effort to remove the towel, though he clearly knew she was there.

  “The steady, sensual gait of a proud, beautiful and domineering woman,” he said, his voice muffled. “Zalmyra, my dear sister... what a charming surprise.”

  “Is it possible you could be unaware of the events in the north?” she wondered coolly.

  Malconi removed the towel. Beneath it, his face was flushed and sweaty. “On the contrary, sister. You might even call me their architect.”

  “In which case I’m somewhat bewildered.”

  He took a fig from the bowl and pushed it into his mouth. “You have your areas of expertise, Zalmyra... which are many and nefarious. I have mine, which are somewhat simpler. You do what you do, while I merely run the affairs of Europe.”

  She arched a disdainful eyebrow. “Pray don’t mistake me, brother, for someone who can be lulled by your usual hyperbole.”

  “Zalmyra, your entire world is centred on Castello Malconi. It’s a long way from the borders of Brittany. I promise you, there is nothing to worry about.”

  “My entire world?” She smiled thinly. “Even were I nothing more than a pleb or slave, that would be quite a significant item to dismiss so easily.”

  Malconi dabbed beads of sweat from his forehead. Cicadas chirped incessantly from the bundles of honeysuckle hanging over the terrace railing. Despite the canopy, the heat of the July day was intense, yet noticeably Duchess Zalmyra remained a figure of marble. Her cold, beautiful face was unflustered. Not a trickle of perspiration snaked down her tall, curved body.

  “We know what we are doing,” he assured her.

  “Is that ‘we’ as in the royal ‘we’?” she wondered. “Or ‘we’ as in you and Emperor Lucius? Knowing you as I do, I sincerely doubt it’s the latter.”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Oh, I see. It’s you and that wily old vulture Simplicius.”

  “God forgive your arrogance. His Holiness is younger than you are.”

  “He’s certainly behaving that way. Only a wet-eared whelp would have allowed this tide of reconquest to run unchecked.”

  “Bah.” Malconi stood and moved to the railing. “You know nothing of what you speak.”

  “I know a fool when I see one. And any pope who would allow Emperor Lucius to declare war on Arthur of the Britons is worse even than that.”

  “A fool? When Simplicius has stage-managed this whole affair?” Malconi dabbed more sweat from his brow. “Think about it, Zalmyra – how can he lose? If Lucius defeats Arthur, all is well and good. He will be away from Italy for many months, maybe years, as he tries to settle the seething pot of discontent that will be Britain. The papacy will be left with the free hand in Italy it enjoyed before. But if Arthur wins, that also is good – Emperor Lucius, a rival at the heart of Christendom, will have been removed.”

  “And Arthur will have taken his place,” she said.

  “Arthur is not interested in dominating Christendom. He wants only to govern his own kingdom. He might plunder the capital and sever a few heads, but he won’t lay hands on His Holiness. In due course he will return north.”

  “I see... and once again our pontiff will reign unchallenged.”

  “Of course.” Malconi took a sip of water. “All Simplicius needed was an excuse for the war, something that would absolve him of guilt when he gave his permission for the fighting to commence. We were sent to find one, and it was not difficult. Arthur has some hot-headed counsellors at his command.”

  “And my son is in the midst of this papally-approved hornets’ nest.”

  “He is a soldier. That was his career choice. He’s exactly where he should be.”

  “You must pluck him out.”

  “He’s a soldier, Zalmyra. Were we not fighting the Britons, we’d be fighting someone else. We have an entire world to re-civilise.”

  “Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are not just ‘someone else,’ Severin. What of this Black Wolf of the North who I hear my son has particularly antagonised?”

  Malconi was surprised that she knew about this, though he supposed he ought not to be. Zalmyra had powers at her beck and call that he didn’t like to contemplate.

  “Earl Lucan is of a belligerent nature,” he admitted. “I’ve seen that for myself. I also hear that he is a feared warrior.”

  “A feared warrior? So even in that esteemed company he stands out? It appears that while you’ve served your two masters, the Pope and the Emperor, with your usual guile, you have faile
d to discharge your duty as an uncle.”

  “I advised against it, but Felix is head over heels in love. He’s a grown man, Zalmyra – presumably you want him weaned away from your tit at some point.”

  She slapped his face – with such force that Bishop Malconi was left dazed; he almost toppled over the railing. At the other end of the terrace, male servants whispered together and snickered.

  “How... how dare you?” he stammered. “You are in no position to disrespect me.”

  “I can do more than disrespect you, brother,” she snarled. “As well you know.”

  “You worry unnecessarily... I’ve told you. A savage war is under way. In a very short time, many of these men you fear will be dead.”

  “You’d better hope and pray that Felix is not among them.”

  “I cannot change the tides of politics.”

  “You blind imbecile, Severin! This is not some game! You sun yourself here while black wolves gather at our door?”

  “Emperor Lucius will stop them.”

  Her voice lowered, became scathing. “You may trust everything to that cream-faced boy, but I won’t. If nothing else, I’ll ensure that what’s mine is safe.” She turned and strode away.

  “Whatever you wish,” he called after her. “But I warn you, sister – don’t use sorcery. The Church forbids it.”

  Her laugh was like a whip-crack. “The Church also forbids catamites, yet your house is full of them.”

  Seventeen

  THE MAIN REASON King Arthur chose the Vale of Sessoine as the ground on which he and Emperor Lucius would finally meet in battle was because it was narrow; no more than half a mile in breadth. Its western and eastern slopes were steep, wooded and rocky, and rose to high sharp ridges, so there was no possibility of New Rome’s vast army outflanking the smaller British host.