The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2)

by A. A. Attanasio

  Instead, she must sit in the dark and work hard on her trances. Like the good and bad powers of fire, trance helps and yet hurts. It helps her contain her rage—and it hurts when she is alone like this in the melancholy night and cannot reach with her anger beyond herself, cannot strike her enemies—the demon Merlin and the half brother seeded by murder in their mother's womb.

  Spiders crawl through her heart whenever she thinks of her father's death, which had made way for Pendragon to wed her mother.

  Father, I will avenge you, she swears to the ghost of Gorlois. I will avenge you—not with murder, but with love.

  The light of her words brightens in her mind, serene and pitiless, and mingles with the carnal echoes of her half brother's life. From everywhere and so from nowhere, those ardent echoes circle around her, passing through the spaces and silences of her trance to feed her heart with bitterness.

  Chapter 11: The Gleeman

  With a summery breeze at his back and morning sunlight running brightly across a landscape quilted with hedgerows and pastures, Merlin walks briskly. He feels odd without staff, hat, and robes, and he leaves behind the wooded mountains around Camelot not willingly, yet without pointless resistance.

  He must go to Arthor. Disguised, of course. The lad is not to know that the wizard Merlin seeks him out. He is not to suspect his regal identity, not until the clans and the families have gathered at Camelot and Merlin has delivered the unsuspecting lad into their presence. Only then, with the sword Excalibur drawn from the stone before all eyes, including the boy's own incredulous gaze, will Arthor be ready, not only to trust his fate but to reveal it to all Britain. The revelation, Merlin knows, will go a long way to enabling the youth to accept his new station and the awful responsibilities that attend it.

  With that resolve, Merlin determines to call himself by his alternate's name—Hannes. Disguising himself as a carpenter, however, leaves him uneasy. Jesus was a carpenter, and the wizard, out of respect for his deceased mother's reverence for the Savior, wants to avoid any association with that holiest of men. Then why not be His opposite, of sorts, Merlin asks himself. He ponders a minute, before his beard opens to a wide grin. He will disguise himself as a gleeman—a vagabond joker!

  "As the Lord raised the dead from the spirits of the grave, I will raise the spirits of the living by my humor," Merlin declares, well pleased. He stops and faces banked conifers that rise like dark, steep flames at the roadside. "You shall be my first audience—you, the living board! And I promise, when I make you laugh, I shall not take a bough. Nor do I take offense that everyone here leaves."

  The wizard slaps his thigh. "You're not laughing," he notes, suddenly somber. "In truth, I get more zest from a ghost. At least a ghost thinks it's alive—but that's its grave mistake!"

  Merlin grins broadly at the conifers before his foolishness congeals to disappointment. Ach, I'm a poor gleeman, he thinks sadly, because I'm not wholly a man. That must be it. I'm a demon merely pretending to manhood. And so I have no humor.

  The wizard continues glumly on his way. The sun scalds his bare pate, and as he walks, he absentmindedly fashions a hat from plaited grass and polished leaves of ivy. Gradually, the paved Roman road breaks into cobbles and tufty grass golden with bees' desire.

  In the middle of the road awaits a small dog the color of cast iron scorched in a kiln, ashen black tinged with rust, a splash of white over one eye as if hit in the face with a snowball. Its tough, tightly compact body shows slats of ribs, and its bowed, ready legs wear badges of dried scabs and bristles of burrs and nettles.

  When Merlin approaches, the large and humorous eyes turn wickedly long and devilish, and the animal's tiny, comical ears lie back, drawing the loose folds of its snout to a fanged snarl. The wizard whispers a happy spell, and instantly the cur's face relaxes and its long tail shoots up and whips the air.

  "Ha!" Merlin shouts with delight, and affectionately rubs the dog's hackles. "You're no wolfhound from the depths, are you? Just as much a mongrel as I, and off on your own, too! Come along then, little one. Let's clean and feed you and hear your opinions of this world."

  At a pond overgrown with duckweed and creeping mints, Merlin sits on a rock shelf and gently washes the filthy animal. The wizard whispers soothing magic while removing bramble thistles and salving open wounds with mallow and willow sap.

  "You shall come with me," Merlin announces, and playfully wraps the dog's head in green ruches of duckweed so the mutt seems to sport a pharaoh's turban. "You shall be my wise dog. And you will entertain the people in ways that I have not the wit to do. And because, with my magic, you shall seem wise enough to be your own master, wise as any animal divinity of ancient Egypt, you shall be known as ... Master Sphenks!"

  The dog shakes off the shirring of pondgrass and yaps merrily. Then, Merlin leads Master Sphenks through a woodsy field blue with flaring harebells to a glassy stream, and there calls up several trout. While the animal gnaws at its raw fish and the wizard braises his in a small fire, they talk about the dog's life.

  There is not much to tell, as the dog has been wild since birth; only that the world is much improved now that the wizard has used his magic to drive off ticks and lice and to provide food the likes of which Master Sphenks has never tasted.

  How eerie and beautiful to be here with this two-leg, whose kind have always before thrown rocks, the little dog says with its flurrying tail. It grins up at its new friend, who smiles down at it from inside his flustery, white beard. Overhead, opulent clouds stream past, and Master Sphenks grins sweetly into life's everlasting flow.

  Farther upstream, a league away, Arthor and Fen ride into a sapling forest that spins sunlight to threads like hot glass. In the sugared heat rising from carpets of daisies and violets, they ride bare-chested and hatless. Arthor has untied the hostage's hands, and they travel together, seemingly easy as comrades. Fen has spoken not a word, nor Arthor, since leaving White Thorn, yet the two understand each other. Fen is going back to his people, and soon Arthor will be at his mercy.

  Along a stream hung with trees, the Saxon draws alongside Arthor, and says in guttural Latin, "You are of my people."

  Arthor skims a thin smile. "You talk your enemy's tongue."

  "Aelle made all his children learn." Fen watches the lion-browed warrior with great intensity. "You speak the enemy's tongue—but do you speak your father's?"

  "I don't have a father."

  "Everyone has a father."

  "I like it better when you don't talk." He kicks his palfrey to a faster trot and pulls ahead through proliferous rivergrass and a mass of yellow butterflies.

  They ride in silence. In the hamlet of Telltale, they eat a noon meal of black bread, cheese, and dandelion greens, and Fen remains mute. All that afternoon, as they journey among tilled fields under bosomy hills dark with forests, they say nothing.

  Coming to a wild orchard of ambering fruit, they pause beside an ancient sundial that served a villa now sunken in blowing grass. There, they sit munching apples with their backs to the sundial's stone post, its engraved satyrs worn to shadows by centuries of northern rain.

  Then they ride again, past shepherds and farmers on their tilted pastures, past more remnants of Rome—a shattered row of columns that vines twirl upon and shards of mosaics with images exhausted by lichen.

  In the ephemeral dusk, they graze their horses in the blue shadowland of a hillside while they sup on muffins and salt meat from Telltale. Afterward, they tie the steeds to evergreen ash atop the hill and lie down to sleep in a nearby stand of birch under a hectic moon.

  Moonlight searches the higher branches, and Fen's voice, disembodied in the dark, seems to climb down from there, "You are a great warrior, yet the Celts make you eat and sleep with their servants. That is why they are weak. They do not reward greatness. To be chief, you must be the son of a chief. But among my people, who your father is makes no difference. Each man creates his own destiny. You would be a chief among my people—among your fathe
r's people."

  "I don't have a father," Arthor grumbles. "Go to sleep."

  "Your father is a Saxon. Your blood is Saxon."

  "Shut up."

  "I have seen the way the Celts treat you. You are little more than a dangerous dog to them. They let you loose to kill their enemies. Otherwise, they keep you in a kennel. Leave them. Join with a Saxon clan who will accept you proudly for your bravery. Or take your own freedom and hire your sword to chiefs who will pay you well."

  Arthor knows Fen is right, and that is why he is determined to go his own way. As he glides toward sleep, he holds Short-Life close. With this saber, he will cut a path for himself through the world.

  Mother Mary, on the shield propped alongside, smiles softly in moonlight, the phosphor of her image continuing behind his closed lids. She will stand beside him. She is all I need, he thinks, and falls asleep.

  Morning comes with the color of pearls and acres of rain that run over the hilly land to the north. The two travelers rise and ride to meet the rain through narrow trails among hedges of black hollyhock and into fields of blue larkspur. Hunched over in the wet wind, they peer ahead to where the sun slumps golden among shelving clouds above an ancient forest.

  A thorp of sod-roofed cottages occupies the elbow of a stream. One cottage grazes a red kine atop its turf roof, and two others plait threads of cooking fires into the east wind. On the cow path that leads down to the thorp, the rain stops, and directly ahead of them a tall, angular old man and his small dog step from the hedges.

  The aged wanderer wears a tediously long white beard and a ridiculous hat of plaited grass and ivy that makes him appear very like a Roman god in disguise. "Hail, travelers," he calls in a gravelly voice far bigger than his narrow body should hold. "I am Hannes the gleeman—and this be my wise dog, Master Sphenks."

  The rusty black dog with the white-patched eye leaps in the air and twirls about with a happy yelp.

  "We are bound for Hammer's Throw," the old fool continues, "and we seek the protection of Christian soldiers to guard our way."

  "We are not Christian soldiers," Arthor replies. "God help you with your travels, old man."

  "Lad, I see you bear the image of Our Savior's mother," the gleeman presses, and the dog at his side sits up, paws pressed together as if praying. "For the sake of she who knew love's labor best of all women, I ask your protection."

  "I am a Christian," Arthor admits, "but this man beside me is the warrior son of the pagan chieftain Aelle. Best you find other companions for this journey, old fool."

  Master Sphenks lays its face to the ground and covers its eyes in mock fear. "Aelle of the Thunderers—the destroyer of cities?" the gleeman asks, then scowls darkly and points an accusing finger at the Saxon. "Many thousands of Christians have died horrid deaths at Banavem, Venta, Anderida, Regnum—cities where every man, woman, and child were slain by Aelle and every house burned to ash. Why is this murderer alive at your side, boy, and you a Christian soldier?"

  "Be on your way, fool," Arthor says, trying to ride past him, but the gleeman will not budge from the narrow cow track.

  "Avenge those Aelle has killed and slay this heathen murderer," the old man insists. "Give me your sword, and I will do the deed, boy."

  When the gleeman steps closer to grab for the sword, Arthor puts his foot against the fool's chest and kicks him into the rocky bramble. Master Sphenks yaps angrily, stands on its hind legs, and punches the air like a pugilist.

  Arthor ignores the queer creature and rides past, but Fen looks back, astonished by the wise dog and the angry gleeman. If he had a sword, he would gut the fool just to see the little dog dance with grief.

  The riders stop in the thorp and eat a puree of pulse thickened with barley flour. Arthor purchases hard-boiled eggs, several loaves of oat bread, a large wedge of green cheese, and a bag of chestnuts, and they ride out, into the immense forest.

  The trees move apart, and the gleeman and his wise dog are waiting for them yet again on the forest track. "This is Crowland you are entering, Christian soldier," the old fool warns sternly. "There are brigands about—wildwood gangs. You'll do well to take me and Master Sphenks with you. I do not need to remind you that you will get little help against your foes from the likes of that Saxon marauder at your side. And even a fool such as I can see you're but a boy. You'll need the wisdom of my dog to correct your lack of years."

  Arthor rides on as if he does not see the old man, his horse bumping into him and shoving him aside.

  "Where is your Christian charity, lad?" the gleeman calls, and Master Sphenks shakes its head ruefully. "You shame the Lady of Grace whose image you bear."

  Arthor does not listen. Mother Mary wants him to travel alone, to fulfill his last promise to Kyner. After that, he will be free to tend all the fools and their wise dogs she sends his way. He and Fen ride steadily into the forest, startling doves that flutter like ghosts into the vaulted darkness.

  Chapter 12: Severus Syrax

  Accompanied by three hundred infantry, eighty archers, and thirty lancers, Severus Syrax arrives at Camelot intending to crown himself high king of Britain. A gaunt, swart man with forked beard, aquiline nose, and proud mouth, he affects the oriental manner of his Syrian ancestry with a turbaned pith helmet and Persian-style silks beneath a Roman cuirass bossed in gold.

  His mount, a long-necked black stallion, prances on slender legs lively as flames. The elegant steed carries him haughtily on parade with his troops, along the handsome paved boulevard that departs the Roman road through the red-roofed village of Cold Kitchen and ascends yew-cloistered slopes to Camelot.

  For fifteen years, Severus has prepared himself for this regal event. While other warlords feuded among themselves and skirmished with the Celtic clans, he managed to avoid all conflicts and meticulously build alliances with the small mercantile families of Britain's coloniae.

  He extended credit from the rich coffers of the Syrax family to those potential allies who required capital, and he installed spies and agents in the powerful and independent households that did not need him. Over time, through a patient progression of selective poisonings, orchestrated marriages, and blatant coercion, he won influence with a majority of the island's great families.

  Severus, bolstered by the support of Britain's commercial leaders, bid for the allegiance of Bors Bona, the fierce British battle lord from the north possessed of a formidable army. He won Bors by promising him taxation rights on all overland trade routes among the coloniae. Such rights guaranteed a fabulous fortune. But to collect, Bors would have to tame brigands and storm raiders and control the overland routes, thus securing trade interests for all, including the Syrax family.

  As he rides into Camelot, Severus Syrax is thinking very intently about the Celts. His wealth means nothing to them, they who worship freedom above possession; and his army, even with Bors Bona to back him, can only make them fear him, not acknowledge his suzerainty over all Britain. To win alliance with these superstitious pagan souls, he calculates he must compel the cooperation of the one Briton they truly respect—the wizard Merlin.

  Commandeering the palace grounds for his camp, Severus orders pavilion tents erected for his officers in the courtyard within the rampart walls of the fortress. He directs that his quarters shall occupy the great hall itself. Only days earlier, workers raised its enormous cedar roof. He orders the workers' scaffolds and benches removed to make room for his furnishings, which include a canopy bed, elaborate mahogany wardrobes, even an ebony throne inlaid with mother-of-pearl and amethysts big as walnuts.

  "Merlin will not stand for this," the foreman warns, when he sees the display. A stout, red-faced man, he speaks with a loud voice used to giving orders. "We've all heard him say it, time and again: all participants in the festival are to camp upon the meadows. No one is to occupy the fortress but the high king himself."

  Severus stares down his beaky nose with dark, unblinking eyes, a piercing stare that openly challenges the foreman's outrage
. "Send Merlin to me."

  Two leagues away, in Cold Kitchen, Hannes has kept himself busy inspecting bake shops, butchers, fishmongers, and grocers, doing little more than driving mice out of larders, settling petty disputes, and helping repair leaky roofs and warped wagon axles—anything to keep away from Camelot.

  The stout foreman and his gaffers find him hunched over in an outlying meadow, under a pelting hail of raspberries harvested by magic. Informed that Severus has entered Camelot and appropriated the great hall for himself, Hannes brushes smashed fruit from his singed beard and offers in a high, hopeful voice, "Perhaps Lord Severus inspects the construction?"

  "My lord, he's set up a throne!" The foreman glares. "When the Celts get wind of that, blood will spill in Camelot!"

  With ponderous reluctance, which the foreman and his men interpret as weighty rage, Hannes stalks across the field, staff in hand. He refuses to ride, wanting as much time as possible to prepare for the frightful showdown. All he can think to do is summon courage with a magical chant.

  By the time he reaches Camelot, he has sung the valorous incantation so many times that he swaggers, virtually drunk with bravery. I will make Syrax's throne dance out of Camelot! And if this grandee so much as looks cross-eyed at me, I will shout spells that will tie his tongue to his toes!

  The magister militum sits in the circular hall, pert upon his ebony chair, beringed hand contemplatively twirling a curl of black hair at his temple. At the sight of this ominous man so imperious and foreign in his shiny ringlets and kohl-rimmed eyes, with his silk robes like vaporous layers of ether floating on his narrow body, Hannes quails. All valor wisps away from the carpenter and leaves him cold with fright.

  "At last—the celebrated wizard." The governor of Londinium scowls. "Why have you kept us waiting, Merlin?"

  Relief floods Hannes at the warlord's acceptance of him as Merlin, and his mind goes airy and loses all chance of reclaiming its angry edge. Meekly, he replies, "Chores. I had chores. In Cold Kitchen."