King Arthur: The Bloody Cup: Book Three

by M. K. Hume

‘No, my lord. Where is Balyn? Where is my brother? He told me you sent him to Glastonbury, but that was all. We parted on bad terms . . .’

  ‘He’s with Bishop Otha at Glastonbury on my orders. I asked him to recover the staff that was used to slay Bishop Aethelthred.’

  ‘Oh!’ Balan could find nothing further to say.

  ‘The task is neither dangerous nor arduous. However, if rumours of Otha’s hospitality are true, your brother is in danger of being bored to death.’ Artor looked speculatively at Balan. ‘Do you truly worry that Balyn has come to some harm? If you wish, I can easily send a messenger to Glastonbury.’

  Concern furrowed the brow of the king and Balan was acutely embarrassed.

  ‘No,’ Balan decided. ‘My brother wouldn’t thank me if I were to fuss like a virgin aunt. He’d be likely to sulk for days if I meddled in his orders from you. Still . . .’

  ‘Still, you can’t help but worry.’

  ‘Aye. Balyn leads with his heart, if you take my meaning, my lord. He is passionate when he should be cool, but his love is true and innocent. In some ways, he’s still a child.’

  Artor grinned with sudden understanding. ‘Whereas you are the reverse. You and your brother are two men who make the perfect whole through separate halves. Aye, you’re very fortunate.’

  At that moment, a page knocked at the king’s door, opened it tentatively and informed his master that a courier was riding in haste towards Cadbury.

  Artor glanced at Balan and recognized the shiver of presentiment in his grandson’s eyes. The king had seen such an expression in his own silver mirror often enough.

  ‘Attend on me, Balan, while we await this news at the gates of the citadel.’

  Balyn rode into the wilderness with scant concern for his life or for his safety. Sobbing, and retching with distress, all night, he forced his horse on, careless of branches and thorns, and it was only when the beast started to founder that Balyn pulled on the reins and forced the terrified, heaving animal to a shuddering halt.

  His head pounded with a crazed refrain.

  His grandfather was Artor, High King of the Britons. Did his mother know? Was she foolish? Was she false? And the king had dishonoured Balyn’s whole tribe by his silence, rejecting his grandsons and building his kingdom on a lie. In his own twisted fashion, Otha was correct in his assumption that the king was false, which meant the kingdom was also flawed.

  Balyn’s forehead seemed to be bound by a band of hot iron. All he could see around him was treason, falsehood and pretence. The rot in the west had even contaminated holy Glastonbury, for Bishop Otha had betrayed his vows by serving a corrupt master.

  Balyn burned on a pyre of his own making. As his idols crumbled, so did his faith. In the roiling stew of his emotions, he never, for a moment, considered reasons for the choices made in the distant past. If there was no such thing as the rule of law, why should he obey empty words?

  He needed rest, food and shelter for himself and his suffering horse. Before this past night of horror, he would have courteously asked for succour at the first cottage that his journey crossed. And he would have been rewarded with hospitality. But he determined that he would be like the rest of the world and simply take what he chose. He was tired; let the cattle serve his needs without chatter or argument.

  He walked his sweating horse to a thatched hut surrounded by vegetable plots and fruit trees on the margins of the forest. The night was on the wane and, in a few hours, the sun would rise to create a new day. But for now, deep indigo shadows lurked under the trees and the hut was sunk in deepest silence.

  Using the hilt of his sword, Balyn pounded on the flimsy plank door. For a moment, he enjoyed a shameful, visceral thrill that his arrival must frighten the peasants inside.

  Within, he heard a faint rustling and the frightened murmur of voices. A face shrouded in purple shadow cast from a dying fire appeared at the opened crack in the doorway.

  ‘I require food, water and care for my horse. Stand aside!’

  All that the householder could see was a dark shadow, barred with moonlight, and a pair of pale eyes that glowed eerily in the light of the fire. The man threw his weight against the door to close it, but Balyn had already thrust a foot over the threshold.

  A figure scuttled away from him, reaching for a long object leaning in a corner of the hut. Balyn imagined a concealed spear biting deeply into his flesh, just like Otha - so he swung his sword blindly at the shadowy figure in the semi-darkness.

  He would hear that scream, as his weapon cleaved through skin and bone, until the moment of his death.

  Another form threw itself upon his back and yet another fastened teeth into his sword hand. In a parody of a ritualistic battle dance, the prince stumbled in the enclosed darkness, stabbing, punching and thrusting at nightmarish shadows while his nostrils filled with the hot stink of blood and relaxed bowels.

  Then he stood alone in the shadows, panting with terror and exertion.

  Tripping over soft forms on the earth floor, he found cut wood by touch and thrust a log into the dying fire. As the wood began to burn, the shabby structure of plaited willow branches and sod slowly became clear.

  And Balyn saw what he had done.

  The man at the door had taken a sword cut across the side of the throat, almost severing his head from his trunk. The body had almost pumped dry of blood and lay huddled in an untidy shamble on the ground. The man clutched a wooden staff in his still-warm hands.

  A woman had leapt on his back and had sustained a sword thrust in her chest. Both hands held the edges of the gross wound together and her eyes had already rolled up into her skull. Her heavy breasts, half exposed in the struggle, seemed pathetically vulnerable.

  The bodies of the children were the worst. One child appeared unmarked, except for the strange angle of his neck where Balyn’s fist had hurled the child across the room. The boy, for such he had been, stared out of unseeing pupils into the vast spaces of the unknown. He could not have been more than ten.

  The girl still lived, but her breathing was already slowing. Twelve-year-old flesh is no match for a sword. And her arm was barely attached at the shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Balyn moaned as the girl tried to find her mother’s hand with a small, grimy paw. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  The girl breathed once more, deeply, and then the hut became silent except for a thin wail from the corner.

  Sickened with self-loathing, Balyn saw a plaited rush cradle hanging from a roof rafter. Inside the straw, wrapped in a woven slip of wool, an infant cried weakly.

  As if in a dream, Balyn sheathed his bloody sword and raised his hand to touch the flushed, soft face. The pearl of Artor’s ring glittered on his hand in a web of wet blood, and Balyn found himself retching uncontrollably.

  Guilt rose in his scrambled thoughts in waves of vomit and bile, until his throat was raw and his eyes were filled with tears. Some primal survival instinct caused him to find the hut’s meagre store of bread and dried apples and thrust them into his tunic. Then he found a jug containing clean water that he used to fill his water bottle to the brim before taking the remainder to his horse. A small storage area yielded large jars of grain that he gave to the beast.

  It shied nervously away from his bloody hands.

  Balyn braced himself to re-enter the hut. If he left the infant in this wilderness, it would be dead in a few hours. His essential decency demanded that he find succour for the child.

  ‘How can I look on what I have done?’ Balyn screamed at the fading darkness.

  The stars had gone down, and the sky was beginning to lighten with the approach of daylight.

  He walked through sticky blood in the small, stinking hut, to lift the child out of its cradle with his left arm. Four pairs of eyes seemed to reproach him from the eerie circle of death, while empty, innocent hands mocked his manhood and his honour.

  Heedless of the tears that had begun to stream down his face, Balyn pulled a log from the f
ire and rolled it into the straw pallet where it leapt into harsh, hungry life.

  The skin of the unfortunate farmer began to blacken and his hair soon caught alight in a gust of yellow flame. Balyn could gaze on the physical proof of his sin no longer; he left the hut and led his horse into the wilds, heading ever further east.

  Artor and Balan waited quietly at the last gate leading to the tor and watched as the approaching horseman passed over the defensive dykes of Cadbury. The rider’s passage was slow, but Artor would eventually understand that the reason for his long wait lay in the nature of the steed, a large grey beast with thick fingers of long hair around its plate-like hooves. For a brief moment, Artor remembered a huge, good-natured horse called Plod, and its offspring, Aphrodite, who had endured his lessons in horsemanship so many years earlier when his world was still young. But this horse was old, as was evident in its bony spine and sagging belly, and any farmer would have recognized the rubbed cicatrices in its shaggy coat that spoke of its normal task of dragging a plough.

  The rider was equally unkempt. A cloak of stiff sheepskin protected the traveller from inclement weather. His homespun clothes and his rough spear, with a point of wood that had been hardened by fire, spoke eloquently of a simple, rustic life.

  ‘Why does a farm boy seek out the High King?’ Artor asked aloud as the heavy beast lumbered up to the final gate.

  ‘Will you not see him then, my lord?’ Balan asked.

  ‘Of course I’ll see him. I must hear the problems of any of my subjects who come to Cadbury,’ Artor answered tartly. A vague feeling of unease made his tone brusque and stern.

  ‘At least the common folk know that they have your ear if they need to speak with you.’

  Artor sighed. He had learned to his cost over many years that unannounced visitors to the citadel, whether noble or peasant, usually meant trouble.

  The farm horse on which the visitor rode was so tall at the shoulder that it almost dwarfed Odin. The Jutlander gripped the horse’s cheek straps while the thin shepherd boy eased himself down from its wide back. He shook himself vigorously, stamped his numb feet and tried to tame his tangled hair. Then he recognized the tall figure walking towards him.

  ‘Lord Artor,’ he cried brokenly, for the visitor was little more than a youth whose voice was just beginning to change into a masculine baritone. He abased himself full length upon the wet ground.

  ‘Stand on your feet, young man,’ Artor stated in his most informal tone. ‘You’ve obviously come to Cadbury for some purpose, so speak out bravely to your king.’

  ‘Sir . . . sir . . . I am Grawryd of Slowwater, half a day by horse to the north.’

  The king nodded encouragingly. The boy was so nervous, Artor was afraid he would faint under the strain.

  ‘We . . . we . . . need help, sir, for we’ve been set upon by a wild man out of the forest who kills anyone who crosses his path.’

  ‘A wild man?’ Artor repeated, raising one eyebrow in surprise. ‘What does this man do?’

  ‘He . . . kills the people, sir. He butchered Hod Carrottop and his family at their farm near Slowwater. He even slaughtered their children. Then he left their infant son at another farm a few miles from the wood.’

  ‘To kill children is certainly the actions of a wild man,’ Artor replied evenly.

  The shepherd boy blushed to the roots of his dirty-blond hair.

  ‘The babe died, sir. The wild man couldn’t feed it, and the farmer at Longfield was a widower, and his cow died last winter, and . . .’ The boy’s voice trailed away with distress.

  ‘Have you seen this wild man yourself, young Grawryd of Slow - water? ’ Artor asked gently. ‘Have you seen him with your own eyes?’

  The youth nodded, his prominent Adam’s apple bouncing as he swallowed convulsively.

  ‘Describe him then, young Grawryd.’

  The youth looked skyward as if to recall a horrid memory as clearly as he could.

  ‘I was bringing the sheep to the new pasture when I saw a horseman come to my uncle’s door, my lord. I’d not have seen him close up if I hadn’t heard a scream, so I come running to see what’s up. I had my spear, you see.’

  Artor nodded, and Balan marvelled at the king’s patience.

  ‘By the time I got there, he’d killed my uncle with his huge sword, right beside the animal pen, and was taking my uncle’s plough horse, old Fenn here. I could hardly breathe for shaking, but I crawled as close to him as I dared, near the hay rick.’ The boy was breathless as he relived the horror.

  Artor waited until the shepherd boy lurched back into speech.

  ‘He was dressed in rags. He looked like he’d ridden through thorn trees and branches because his face and arms were cut and scratched. His hair was full of twigs and his eyes were all red and mad. I could hardly bear to look at him.’

  The boy searched for an amulet that was strung round his throat on a strip of hide. He kissed the rough form superstitiously, and Artor recalled his first wife’s amulet that had hung, warm and comforting, against his own breast until he gifted it to his daughter.

  ‘He was covered in blood - even in his hair. And he stank of it where it had dried on his hands and face. I couldn’t make a sound, sir. And him covered in my uncle’s blood as well.’

  ‘Yet you’re here on old Fenn,’ Artor said gently. ‘Why didn’t he take the plough horse?’

  ‘My aunt came running and she set up such a caterwauling and howling. The wild man drew his sword and I thought sure he’d cut her head off too. But then he sort of shook himself and howled like some beast. After a few minutes, he put his sword away and ran off into the woods.’

  ‘Why did you come here when the villagers could have hunted him down since he was afoot?’

  Grawryd gulped, then sobbed. He shivered uncontrollably.

  ‘I took Fenn and rode as fast as I could to Slowwater Village. Straight away, the men found torches and what weapons they had and went after the wild man, even though they only had hoes and hay forks. I tried to warn them that he wasn’t some madman or thief, but they’d never seen a wild man before, so they thought five grown men were enough to kill or capture him.’

  Tears ran down the boy’s cheeks, making runnels through the grime that had dusted his skin during the journey to Cadbury.

  ‘They wouldn’t listen to me because they didn’t know what he was. I was too scared to go with them, so the headman told me to take care of the women and children. I did my best, my lord, truly I did.’

  ‘I believe you, Grawryd of Slowwater, so speak out bravely,’ Artor replied soothingly. The shepherd boy stared up into the face of his king with mingled love and awe.

  ‘I made some of the women take their children into the woods at the end of Longfield, but the blacksmith’s wife and her old parents refused to budge. I hid beside the river to watch over them once I got the others hidden. I just knew that the wild man would come looking for a horse, so five farmers wouldn’t stand a chance against that sword of his. Within half an hour, I heard howling and screaming, and then it got real quiet. I knew he was coming. Old Fenn was with the women in the woods in case the wild man came after them, so I hid in a tree near the headman’s home and waited.’

  The boy stopped to ensure Artor understood the gravity of what he was saying.

  ‘He came. Oh, sir, he came!’ Grawryd was close to tears. ‘He’d killed them all. I checked the bodies later and they’d been hacked to pieces. He’d left them where they fell, all body bits and blood, and had come to Slowwater to take any food and the horse that he wanted. He killed Etta and her children . . . and the old people . . . and he ate his food with those bloody hands on the path outside the blacksmith’s house. He seemed to smell the air as if he knew I was watching him. I could hardly breathe, sir, for fear of crying out aloud, but I hid in the leaves and escaped alive. He took the blacksmith’s pony when he left.’

  Grawryd began to weep in earnest, and Artor gripped his shoulder comfortingly until the boy managed
to speak again.

  ‘Then I went and got the women and old Fenn. When I left, they were preparing their menfolk for burial, so I rode here at once. The wild man will kill and kill until someone stops him. His eyes, sir, were red as if they were filled with blood. His face was smeared with dried mud, gore and things I don’t like to think about. Whoever he once was, he’d turned into a demon, sir, so twisted up and hating was his face. Even his hair was stiff with blood. I could smell him on the wind. Oh, sir, you must do something, else everyone he comes upon will die.’

  The boy was half-fainting with exhaustion and the horror of his experiences, so Artor ordered Odin to take him away and give him food and rest.

  ‘This tale is monstrous,’ Balan exclaimed, sickened by Grawryd’s story. ‘This creature must be hunted down and slaughtered.’

  ‘I agree. But farmers don’t carry swords, so this wild man is probably a brigand, or even an escaped Saxon trying to reach the east. Whoever he is, he must be captured. If Saxons are abroad, I must know of it.’

  ‘I beg the opportunity to find him, my king. I’m certain I could capture him and bring him back to be judged for his crimes. I’m half-mad anyway with boredom since my brother went to Glastonbury.’

  ‘Very well. But you must take Gruffydd with you. He’s old, and is no longer fit for battle, but he speaks the Saxon tongue and knows the hills and forests like no other person. He must be consulted first, mind, for I promised him that he could leave the court in honourable retirement, but if you hope to find this beast, then Gruffydd is the best man to assist you in your task.’

  ‘Do I take Grawryd with me?’

  ‘Yes. He knows the terrain and he knows the villagers. They will trust him where they would not trust strangers in their midst, especially warriors with swords.’

  Artor knew in his heart that this wild man was a rogue soldier so inured to blood and death that the slaughter of a few more peasants meant nothing. Killing was a dangerous habit, one that weakened the barriers between right and wrong. Artor could hear Targo’s voice, beyond the shadows, as he reminded his student that warfare had its own particular perils.