The Blood of Kings: Tintagel Book I

by M. K. Hume

  His humiliation forgotten, the blacksmith began to shape the new shoe while his apprentice worked the bellows until his face was purple with effort. As always, Maximus found pleasure in watching a smith force the horse to raise its hoof and then smelled the pungency of burning hair as the shoe, still hot, was deftly put into place.

  When the smith handed him the reins, Maximus gave the veteran a golden coin. The reward was far too much for such a trivial task. As Alwyn bit into the coin to check on its purity, Maximus laughed and leaped into the saddle, feeling his mount’s strength and renewed confidence in its repaired hoof.

  ‘A long life to you, master,’ the smith shouted as Maximus kneed his bay and the gelding raced away with a great splatter of mud and water. ‘And, if it’s fated to be short – then let it be glorious!’

  ‘Remember that man, boy,’ Alwyn told his apprentice as the cavalcade disappeared down the makeshift street. ‘He’ll not make old bones, but he’ll surely leave a trail of destruction behind him.’

  The rest of the journey to Tintagel passed without incident, except for Maximus’s amazement at how much the landscape could change within the space of a few miles. In this strange land even the rivers seemed deceptively shallow and harmless, or sprang from ground that was stained the colour of blood.

  Maximus had chosen to ignore a coarse pathway that had been hacked through the thick green sod by the movement of many sharp hooves. Instead, the tribune followed the high ground along the ridges in typical Roman fashion, for he was eager to survey the fortress from above before he committed himself to the plunging downward path. Maximus had scoffed at the notion that these British tribesmen could possibly build an impregnable fortress, given their usual levels of engineering expertise, until he reached the brow of the hill and beheld Tintagel Castell on the cliffs overlooking the Oceanus Atlanticus.

  The drop down to the fortress entrance was dizzying. Maximus discovered he was at the same level as the wheeling gulls and birds of prey circling the cliffs in great soaring spirals. Swathes of grass covered the slopes of the peninsula in long, deep waves, carved out by the impossibly strong winds that captured Maximus’s red cloak and sent it swooping and diving like a firebird. The path to the castell followed a long curve that wound its way down to a row of flint-stone buildings next to a narrow causeway that shuddered above the raging sea and allowed access to the citadel itself.

  Beyond this causeway that was only slightly wider than the width of a mounted horseman, a dangerous lip of a second causeway hung above the boiling waves that dashed against the base of the cliffs. Then, from a guardhouse that was identifiable from the ant-like warriors who seemed to man its negligible margins, a set of carved stone stairs rose up the side of the cliff to give access to the fortress on the clifftops. Those steps rose in a dizzying curve to platforms near the top of the cliffs, where the fortress glowered, surrounded by the huts of the peasant-servants that clung onto sloping rocks overhanging the surging ocean below.

  ‘Hades!’ Maximus breathed. ‘You could assail that place for a year and get nowhere. Even if an enemy reached the causeway, they’d be picked off from above. I must remind myself never to try to capture Fortress Tintagel.’

  Decius stared at the terrifying stairway, uneven and winding, and barely wide enough for one man at a time to stand on each rung.

  ‘I’ll be the first to remind you of your decision, master. Those stairs would break a cohort’s heart. It’d be bloody murder to try to climb them, especially if the defenders decided you weren’t welcome.’

  ‘Now I know why Caradoc is a man to be reckoned with. It’s no wonder that Tintagel has never fallen to invaders.’

  Maximus felt the hair rise on his forearms and the back of his neck, as if a wight had run its dead fingers over his living flesh.

  ‘This place is intimidating, just as the surrounding landscape is fierce and strange. Look at it! Have you ever seen the like, Decius?’

  The horsemen suddenly heard a loud challenge from ahead of them where a group of mounted warriors awaited the approach of Maximus’s cavalcade. Immediately a troop of six men rode up the flinty track at a brutal speed on horses that were safely negotiating paths they had known all their lives.

  Maximus wheeled his gelding and summoned his men to follow him to meet the Dumnonii warriors on the path. Fortunately his horse splayed its front legs and dug in on its heels, refusing to tackle the incline at other than a sensible speed.

  Cursing the common sense of his bay, Maximus dragged his horse to a halt. Better to wait for the guardians of Tintagel to approach him directly than look a total fool by falling off his mount. The six warriors reached the Roman party, who outnumbered them by four to one, but there was no fear evident on their stern and weathered features, only curiosity and expectation.

  Though much like other barbarians he had known, these men were subtly different. Their hair was well tended, even with the plaited forelocks that Maximus recognised, but they had decorated the ends of their plaits with bands of gold, plated shells and scraps of red cloth. The look was even more barbaric than he expected. However, they were very clean, and extremely well armoured in tunics of chain mail, while their belts, cloak pins and body jewellery bore the device of a charging boar. They looked at Maximus’s standard, the Boar of the Twentieth Legion, and spoke rapidly in their own version of the Celtic language. The tribune doubted that they could speak Latin so he launched into an explanation in the language of northern Cymru as to his identity and why he was visiting the citadel. One of the warriors raised his left hand to halt the flow of words.

  ‘There’s no need to struggle with our language, Tribune. Those of us who are close to our king have been trained to speak Latin and are fluent in most of the Celtic dialects. We know who you are, master, and we’ve been anticipating your arrival for the past ten days. The people of the south-west have a system of signalling which gives us advance warning of movements within the margins of our lands. We expected you to arrive several days ago. We should have realised that you were new to the west and might wish to enjoy your journey and the bountiful wonders that exist in our part of the world. Would you agree that our homeland has a special quality about it?’

  One of Maximus’s thick eyebrows rose, but he resisted the impulse to comment on the strangeness of the south-western landscape. He preferred not to indicate he was impressed or affected by Britannia in any way. Romans were masters of the world, and even Dumnonii warriors who were conversant in Latin should accept this fact. After all, they were only barbarians.

  Decius observed his superior’s rigid stance and jutting chin during this discussion. Maximus was still young at twenty-six, despite already having a noble wife and several sons, but his arrogance could place him in harm’s way unless he learned to conquer this palpable flaw. ‘And you are?’ Maximus asked crisply.

  ‘Rowen ap Aidan, sir,’ the leader of the Dumnonii guard replied with a lilt in his voice and a half-smile. This warrior was neither affronted nor threatened by the presence of these Romans and Maximus felt his hackles rise higher in response.

  ‘Well, then, Rowen ap Aidan, I presume your task is to present me to your master, so lead on.’ The arrogance in the tribune’s voice was ignored by the Dumnonii warrior who acted as if their guests were ignorant rather than rude.

  Maximus followed the horsemen to the bottom of the steep hill where they dismounted.

  ‘Your horses will be quite safe here,’ Rowen said cheerfully. ‘Our servants will carry your possessions to the fortress, for you and your men will need both hands for the climb up to the living area of the castell.’

  Maximus refused to respond to this patronising repartee. Decius noticed nervously that his commanding officer had clenched his jaw so tightly the muscles were visible.

  May Mithras help us, the decurion thought. My master’s patience will soon tire from the efforts of these jokester
s to provoke a response from him. They obviously have no fear of Roman might. But at the same time Decius acknowledged that the Romans had ridden roughshod over the Britons for centuries; this Dumnonii captain was simply returning the compliment.

  The tribesmen and their Roman visitors approached the causeway in two distinct groups. Decius could almost see the antipathy form a solid wall between them. Instead of taking part in Maximus’s sulk, the decurion gazed down at the narrow rocky paths that formed an almost impossible approach to the interior of the fortress.

  ‘Horatius and his two friends would have found this causeway easier to defend than the bridge leading into Rome,’ Maximus snapped with a hint of awe.

  ‘I don’t understand, master,’ Rowen replied as he halted and turned to face the tribune.

  ‘Horatius was a Roman soldier of bygone days who volunteered to be locked out of Rome when it was still a small city. Rome was under attack from an army led by the king of Clusium, part of a large empire which existed to the north. Horatius and his two friends were given the task of defending the narrow bridge over the Tiber against their enemies. The defenders held the bridge and they became heroes.’

  Rowen nodded in understanding. ‘We’ve had men fight and die on the very spot where you’re standing over many hundreds of years. As you can imagine, this is the only approach to the fortress of Tintagel. The seas around us are treacherous, so no enemy could hope to land a boat in these waters. They’d be smashed to firewood in moments.’

  Maximus could immediately see what the Dumnonii meant. The sea was a maelstrom on both sides of the causeway and any persons foolish enough to seek limpets or shells from the boulders below would be dragged into the water, where only the strongest of swimmers would be able to survive.

  ‘I’ll remember your Horatius,’ Rowen added with another white-toothed grin. ‘He must have been a brave man and a great warrior.’

  The stones of the causeway were still wet from an unusually high tide, while black, glistening weed had been trapped between the smaller rocks, making the surface slippery. Even Maximus took pains to watch where he placed his feet. Decius heard his commander give a long sigh of relief once they reached the end of the causeway and he was standing on the peninsula itself.

  Once the whole party had reached the flat platform that had been carved from the rock, Maximus surveyed his surroundings with interest. The cliffs were sheer at this spot, for the sea and the high tides had hollowed out shallow caves in the living stone. Maximus recognised the remnants of wooden frameworks that had been used to hold up sections of the cliff face repaired after rock-slides, yet the spaces around them were still sufficient that the caverns could be used as makeshift stables for Caradoc’s personal beasts when he was in residence. He spotted evidence of a heavy winch that must have been mounted on the cliffs above them, used to bring food and other supplies up to the citadel from the causeway below.

  ‘Come then, Tribune. The stairs are around this corner.’ An underlying humour seemed to flicker in Rowen’s golden-brown eyes.

  They followed their guide around a protruding shelf of stone and quickly found the stairs that lay beyond it. The steps took advantage of the cliff face wherever possible and timber and rope supports had been fashioned to provide handholds for safety.

  Every individual step was set at a different height and depth to the ones above and below, so Maximus’s thighs and calves began to protest within a few moments of commencing the climb. He began to count the stairs in an effort to defeat the monotony of this endless ascent, but when he had reached a hundred and was still counting without respite, he surrendered and concentrated on each individual step in case he stumbled and fell which, he admitted, was a likely prospect. Again and again, he was forced to clutch the heavy rope handrails in an effort to avoid a dangerous slide on the wet treads. Swearing pungently, Maximus turned his back to the sea wherever possible, until such time as he reached the safety of a small flat forecourt overlooking the causeway far below.

  Then, at last, he felt sufficient confidence to examine the glorious view.

  Toward the east, the land was darkening as evening began. The earth was a patchwork of light and shadow where colours reflected the brilliance of a late winter afternoon with areas of brilliant orange, pale gold and chocolate brushed with grey where the fields were fallow.

  ‘It’s beautiful, I suppose. More importantly, I can see for miles,’ Maximus said as he gazed out over the treeless cliffs with a soldier’s eye. ‘There’d be no sneaking up on Tintagel. It would be almost impossible.’

  ‘Aye! And we keep guard, both summer and winter. A man lives far longer if he keeps his eyes sharp,’ Rowen replied with the lazy sense of humour that was starting to drive Maximus crazy with irritation.

  Maximus turned in a half circle to face Tintagel.

  Tintagel was very old. The tribune’s first thoughts were that it resembled a giant beehive which had been built, cell by cell, over a long period of time. The lichen-covered stones had been plugged with moss and heavy clay in the deep external recesses to block inopportune draughts from the inside of the castell. The interior was smoothed with a lime-based mud, reinforced with horsehair, that provided a hard surface and made living conditions quite pleasant. From outside, it seemed as if Tintagel had grown out of the moss-spotted rocks during one solitary evening and, night after night, the fortress had matured into the pleasing structure that Maximus viewed with such surprise.

  ‘I’m amazed, Decius. There’s scarcely a single straight line in the whole compound.’

  Decius considered the fortresses at Segontium, Segedunum, Deva and Eburacum, which were identical except for their dimensions. Roman fortifications were built to a time-honoured and tested plan, so that they all looked much the same.

  But not this place! Tintagel wore its idiosyncrasies like a multi-coloured cloak of woven scraps, brightly hued but not necessarily shabby. A practical fortress, she was obviously snug and warm inside, despite the strong winds that howled out of the west. On a pole atop the highest tower, a pennon flew in the wind and, if Decius squinted, he could just make out the form of Caradoc’s emblem that was so like the standard of his own legion, the charging boar.

  Tintagel seemed to be a series of towers, gradually grown and built-between, until its longest lines were irregular and bizarre. Reeds had been used to cover the rooftops, and even from this distance Decius could see that they had been pinned into place by stakes of iron, a profligacy of metal that few kings could afford. Yet he noted practically that the roofing was as thick as a man’s arm and would last for decades before it would need to be renewed. He would hate to be part of the teams of thatchers who would have to repair these mad turrets that seemed to be suspended in space above the Mare Hibernicus.

  Maximus was impatient and cold. The large doors at the entrance to the fortress were firmly shut, although they had swallowed Rowen ap Aidan a short time earlier.

  ‘How long are we expected to freeze our balls off while we await the pleasure of this Caradoc? It may be late in winter, but these winds are damned cold.’

  Maximus wrapped his hood and cloak around him and began to pace back and forth as far as the small forecourt would allow. The iron plates on the heels and toes of his boots clattered loudly on the paving which, like everything else in Tintagel, was rough and uneven. Despite this, the tribune noted that the stone had been chosen for its rich veining and subtle colours.

  Decius suspected that an explosion from his superior was imminent after their delayed entry to the castell. The decurion bent to stroke the stone under his feet, which was a black, slick local rock, veined with a delicate pattern of white. A trimmed stone next to it appeared to have a softer, grainy surface in which he saw the outline of a strange shell trapped within the slab.

  Maximus saw the object of Decius’s attention and remembered other samples hawked in the villages to the nor
th to earn a few coins from strangers. ‘It appears to be a dead sea creature. I’m told that the villages to the north were once under water in an inland sea, so such remains are fairly common.’

  One of the Roman cavalrymen coughed apologetically and Maximus turned sharply to face the opening doors of the fortress. Rowen ap Aidan held the door ajar while an astonishing man, followed by a tall woman and a pair of young lads, moved confidently out into the forecourt. In the darkness of the fortress proper, Maximus was sure that he had seen the light catch on a drawn weapon and his body tensed.

  The man who strolled out into the windy courtyard was taller and much broader than Maximus.

  Decius watched the two powerful men size each other up like mastiffs as they assessed each other’s height, strength and demeanour, in case the relationship should turn sour. It was doubtful that either man had the advantage of the other, a remarkable fact in itself, for Magnus Maximus was acknowledged as one of the finest of the young Romans in the field at this time. Decius winced. The air around the platform overlooking the wild seas was suddenly charged with something other than the usual violence of the weather.

  ‘My lord, allow me to present to you the noble tribune, Magnus Maximus, commander of the garrison of Segontium, and second in command of the Victrix Legions of Deva. His forces destroyed the Hibernian invaders who have carried out raids along the western coast of the British lands,’ Rowen said in a portentous tone.

  Maximus bowed his head the smallest fraction to indicate his respect for his host.

  ‘Tribune Maximus, I present King Caradoc of the Dumnonii tribe. My king is the Boar of Cornwall, and he wishes to state his pleasure at meeting the Roman commander who has been the subject of so much praise throughout our lands – even here in Tintagel. My lord bids you welcome.’

  Caradoc advanced to greet his visitor with his hand outstretched in the age-old offer of friendship that all men of breeding know. His face was wreathed in a wide smile.