The Blood of Kings: Tintagel Book I

by M. K. Hume

  ‘Let’s hope he chokes on his disappointment,’ Maximus countered.

  ‘The grand hall is at the end of this corridor,’ Trefor informed Caradoc. ‘There are guards outside the entrance doors.’

  The guards looked down the passageway in surprise when they heard the sharp, military click of hard leather heels on the stone floor, drawing their swords part way out of their scabbards as a warning to the interlopers.

  ‘Fools!’ Lorn snapped, with his own gladius partly drawn. ‘Haven’t you been told about the presence of Tribune Magnus Maximus and King Caradoc of the Dumnonii tribe? These special guests are here at your master’s personal invitation.’

  The two guards paled, and then flushed, obviously unsure of what to do. They had been informed that it would be some time before the new arrivals would be escorted to the hall. Yet here they were, strong and arrogant, and in total command of the situation.

  ‘Well? Are you going to leave us to cool our heels out here? Or are you going to announce our presence to your master? I take it he’s within the hall.’ Caradoc’s voice was scathing.

  The tallest of the guards, a middle-aged man, stumbled into hasty speech. ‘Er . . . master . . . our lord is with his guests and they are breaking their fast. He ordered us to bar all entry to any other visitors. Please forgive me, my lord, for I don’t mean to be disobliging.’

  ‘But you are being disobliging, you fool!’ Maximus responded, curling his lip in a way his troops and his enemies had learned was dangerous for those who offended him.

  Caradoc threw the embarrassed and shaken man a sliver of hope. ‘Good! Good! We are both starving. We are, of course, important guests of Lord Gwaun, so I’m certain he’d never intend us to be barred from entering his hall.’

  Caradoc matched his request with an artless smile and walked towards the closed door with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. Maximus followed hard on the king’s heels, so the guard had no choice other than to retreat.

  Caradoc used the flat of his sword and his callused hand to open the low door at the front of the hall, and they entered. It was lit by two rows of tall windows, two storeys higher than ground level that allowed a little of the early morning light to enter. But today’s ambient light had been dimmed by the approaching snow clouds, so Gwaun had instructed his servants to close the shutters and light a row of wall sconces and a fire pit in the centre of the room to ensure that his guests were entertained in a warm and homely atmosphere.

  Five pairs of eyes rose from their silver platters with various expressions of surprise, dismay and annoyance at the entrance of these interlopers. Five pairs of hands clenched, formed fists or jerked in guilt as Caradoc, Maximus and their guards swept into the hall with expressions of friendly greeting on their faces and the physical confidence of men who owned the world.

  ‘So we’ve finally found you,’ Caradoc began, spreading his arms wide to encompass all the men sitting around a table laden with food from which delicious smells wafted upwards to tantalise the guests. ‘I assured the tribune you’d be breaking your fast alone in the belief that we’d be exhausted after many weeks on the road. But we’re rather tough, aren’t we, Maximus?’

  ‘And hungry,’ Maximus added wolfishly.

  Then Caradoc struck his forehead with one dramatic hand. ‘I’m sorry! I’m forgetting my manners, gentlemen. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m King Caradoc ap Llyr of the Dumnonii tribe, and I have been invited to join your gathering by King Gwaun of the Atrebates tribe. May I present my friend, Tribune Magnus Maximus to you? He’s a close kinsman of Theodosius, Lord Commander of Britannia. Maximus accompanies me at the behest of Theodosius who wishes to cement friendships with the noble kings of southern Britannia. Some of us are strangers to each other, a regrettable situation that should be rectified as soon as possible, but I’m aware of the nobility and reputations of each of you.’

  Maximus enjoyed seeing the sight of his friend playing games with a host who had treated him with such casual arrogance. Caradoc was able to dissemble as Maximus never could, so he contrived to hide his true nature under a mask of naïve innocence. Several men at the table were already trying to hide smirks of satisfaction behind their hands.

  ‘King Gwaun ap Mairtin, king of the great Atrebates tribe and Master of Venta Belgarum, may I present Tribune Maximus and commend him to you.’

  A plump, soft-skinned man of middle height rose to his feet and smoothed down a long robe of pale blue wool so fine that Maximus could tell at a glance it had been woven in far-off Constantinople. The man wore a series of golden chains around his corpulent neck; their quality and weight screamed wealth. With a small shudder of disgust, Maximus noted an earring of large pearls and gold hanging almost to the large man’s collarbone. Every pudgy finger wore at least one ring and a number of armlets pressed into the soft forearms. Out of devilry, Maximus considered offering his hand in greeting, but Caradoc anticipated this provocative action and fired off a warning glance at his friend.

  Superficially, Gwaun appeared to be an effete, superficial and idle man more concerned with pleasure than his duties of rule. Yet Gwaun would never have survived as a king unless he had a ruthless streak. His land was far too rich and much too important to the trading needs of southern Britannia to be held by a fool. It seemed that Gwaun ap Mairtin could play games as deftly as Caradoc. The difference between them lay in the Dumnonii king’s recognition of the flaws in Gwaun’s character, while Gwaun’s snide smile revealed that he was ignorant of Caradoc’s potential for guile.

  Recovering from his surprise, the Atrebates king bowed neatly. But he performed this polite task as if he was conferring a gift on the two men standing at his table.

  ‘Allow me to introduce Fiachna ap Tormud, king of the Durotriges tribe.’ Caradoc and Maximus nodded in the direction of the man who rose and bowed perfunctorily at them.

  Fiachna was neatly dressed in drab wools but any superficial respectability fled when Caradoc spied the dark crescents of filth under Fiachna’s nails and a line of scum staining the wattles of the man’s neck. His long hair was greasy, his clothing was stiff with accumulated grime and the material was stained with sweat. To top off a careless toilette, Fiachna hadn’t shaved for several days.

  Bleise ap Bladud was an elderly man with iron-grey hair bound into the familiar plaits of a warrior. Although he wore wool like his fellow kings, the material was coarsely spun and woven, while the vegetable dye used had been inexpertly applied. Maximus recalled that Bleise insisted on living in the traditional British style, a way of life that rejected trade goods and luxury items. To his credit, however, King Bleise had shrewd and intelligent eyes that observed the newcomers with care and sincerity and the smile he gave them was warm and pleasant.

  The last two kings were enigmas. Although Adwen ap Rhys was a near neighbour of Caradoc’s, they had never met and the man was a complete stranger to him.

  Adwen, like Gwaun, was dressed in a Roman tunic covered by a toga with a narrow border of purple dye. For his part, Adwen was overtly Roman in his clothing, the cut of his hair, his jewellery and even the use of Latin terms that he continually inserted into his conversations. At first, Maximus doubted that Adwen was serious in his slavish aping of Roman mannerisms but, as he watched the king eating so casually and rudely in front of the visitors, he concluded that Adwen believed himself to be descended from Roman ancestors.

  What an arrogant prig, Maximus thought. Such affectations should only be the preserve of a supreme ruler.

  The other man, Sorcha ap Sion, was the king of the Regni tribe that ruled over the rich countryside to the east of Venta Belgarum. His lands were suffering from regular incursions from Saxon invasions that had spread after landings on the shores of the Litus Saxonicum.

  Sorcha was comfortably dressed. A short, athletic man, with ridges of hard muscle that bulged out from his clothing, his nervousness could b
e clearly seen through callused hands that were constantly catching at threads on his robe. Caradoc and Maximus immediately recognised one of their own kind, a warrior and a man of action who had been forced to petition these men for assistance.

  But Sorcha’s muddy eyes and sour expression repelled and annoyed them both. He had a reputation for violence and thuggish behaviour, which was shown by the coarse grunt he gave to them and his refusal to stand as a mark of respect. Sorcha accorded nothing to strangers who had little to offer him and were, as far as he was concerned, unproven as men of ability and worth.

  Maximus filed Sorcha away as someone who needed a lesson in manners.

  ‘May we be seated?’ Caradoc asked artlessly into a dead silence. Maximus was certain that they had been the chief topic of conversation before their entry. But the room was thick now with unspoken duplicitous words.

  ‘Of course you may, Caradoc. Please sit and refresh yourself,’ Gwaun responded with a commendable effort at bonhomie. ‘Please? My servant will bring you plates of whatever reheated food you might desire.’

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to breaking my fast,’ Maximus said, trying hard to emulate Caradoc’s bland innocence. ‘The exigencies of the road have meant that we often ate dried rations. I’m a soldier, so I’m accustomed to existing like that for months at a time, but every man who makes his living by the sword dreams of food while he’s doing his duty.’

  The assembled kings nodded with various degrees of understanding, but Sorcha’s were the only eyes that showed any real comprehension of life in the saddle. Both Caradoc and Maximus grinned and thanked the soft-footed servant women who approached them with bowls of porridge sweetened with new honey, hot and cold meats, platters of boiled eggs and parcels of fish. A male servant filled glass mugs with mild beer. Maximus licked his lips with anticipation and took out his eating knife.

  Gwaun took the opportunity to watch the Roman’s table manners. ‘Are knives such as yours used regularly in Rome?’ he asked, his curiosity evident on his face. ‘We’ve seen such knives in the south of Britannia before, as well as personal spoons, but they’ve invariably been in the hands of northern kings who have more experience of our Roman overlords than we do.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to use your fingers to eat messy foods, would you?’ Maximus asked with as much diplomacy as he could muster. He was aware that Fiachna’s fingers were still greasy from the bones that he had thrown to the floor for Gwaun’s servants to retrieve.

  ‘I’ve seen many Britons who use eating knives during my travels,’ Maximus added. ‘Caradoc for one!’

  Caradoc obliged by pulling out his own well-used knife with the shape of a fish embedded into its handle. ‘My father presented me with this knife when I was still a lad, so its use has been a long habit for me. All the men in my family learned to use knives and spoons as soon as they could hold onto the handles.’

  Gwaun stared tellingly at the other kings as if he had won a minor argument concerning table manners. Ignoring any undercurrents, Caradoc and Maximus began to slake their hunger.

  The two men ate their meal with obvious gusto and washed it down with deep draughts of the excellent beer. When they had finished, both of them sat back, sighed luxuriantly and the tribune went so far as to belch loudly.

  ‘An excellent meal, Gwaun,’ Caradoc congratulated his host. ‘Truly excellent! I was so hungry that I would have cheerfully demolished anything and everything that was placed in front of me. Your choices of fare and the quality of its preparation were magnificent.’

  Blushing at the fulsome praise, Gwaun steered the conversation onto politics.

  ‘What news is there from the north, Lord Tribune?’ Gwaun asked on behalf of the assembled kings. ‘We’ve heard that the Picts, Hibernians and Saxons have attacked both coasts simultaneously and have been putting many of our tribesmen to the sword.’

  ‘Our enemies have been beaten and the remnants of their forces have been sent home to their mothers and sweethearts,’ Maximus told him. ‘Those men that were still breathing were forced to leave our shores. The northern warriors were no match for the legions and our allies in the north of Britannia, although the raiders drove deeply into your lands with their first attacks in the south. Unfortunately, I believe they will come again, once they’ve regrouped.’

  ‘How long will the peace last?’ Bleise ap Bladud ventured. The man seemed far from kingly, so Caradoc wondered how such a frightened little man could hope to hold the ambitious lords within his tribe in some sort of check.

  ‘How long does it take to grow from a babe to a man?’ Maximus replied curtly. ‘Our enemies suffered great losses, especially the Picts and the Hibernians. The Saxons are another matter, for they are capable of multiplying like ticks on a blanket. In fact, our northern allies refer to the regularity of the Saxon attacks as Saxon Summers.’

  ‘But what about your troops in Londinium?’ Sorcha ap Sion growled. ‘Your troops there have been as useless as tits on bulls when it comes to protecting the Regni lands from them Saxons. And where are your galleys?’

  ‘Yes?’ Maximus inquired silkily as Sorcha picked up a cold chicken wing with his dirty fingers and began to crunch the small bones.

  ‘They’re total failures if they’re supposed to protect the tribes on the Litus Saxonicum. In summer the Saxons come without hindrance! We drive ’em off, but then the buggers come straight back again. Where are the legions when we need ’em down here?’

  ‘God helps those who help themselves, Sorcha,’ Caradoc said. ‘You should have called for help when you needed it. I would have answered your call and I’m the furthest away from your lands. I’m also the least likely to be attacked by those savages who plunder the homes of your peasants. You, and all of your peers, should be discussing a joint response to the Saxon menace. We’ll never get rid of these bastards if they gain a permanent foothold in your lands. If they establish themselves near Londinium, they will eventually become our overlords.’

  Maximus nodded in agreement as he continued to devour food from the platters that surrounded his silver plate in a crescent. Idly, he wondered at such ostentation, for silverware tarnished so readily. Gwaun must have demanded hard work from his servants, because it was spotlessly clean.

  ‘We were considering some kind of temporary alliance during the summer months when you joined us,’ Gwaun explained brightly, but Maximus could see that the king’s fingers were restive. ‘We’d mostly been discussing the cost.’

  So! These incompetents intend to keep the Dumnonii out of their cosy little alliance, Maximus thought sourly. Is he too talented? Or would he be too inflexible to be involved in activities that offended his sense of justice? Perhaps he’s too clever for the other rulers? Maximus was certain that they did not want any Roman involvement.

  ‘Surely a wise king would ensure that all domestic threats to the peace were removed from his lands before any alliances against distant enemies were decided,’ Caradoc said.

  Gwaun raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘That conclusion would seem to be obvious, but are you speaking of any particular threats?’

  ‘Certainly, Gwaun! I must inform you that we were delayed for well over a week after we had a serious confrontation with a band of outlaws on the roads between Vindo Cladia and Sorviodunum. This particular band had ensconced themselves in a farmstead in a remote valley, so they had obviously been preying on the local population for many years.’

  Fiachna’s face coloured to an ugly plum shade that extended all the way to his thinning hairline. On the other hand, Gwaun looked even more perplexed, so Maximus acquitted him of any knowledge of Elphin and his murderous bunch of malcontents.

  ‘Outlaws? So many, and so close? Did you know about this cadre, Bleise? Your borders must be close to this farmstead.’ Gwaun’s face was curious and grave by turn.

  ‘Um! . . . I may have heard talk of su
ch a band of outlaws in the woods,’ Bleise responded with feigned nonchalance.

  ‘From what the outlaw chieftain said to us before he lost all power of speech, I believe that you knew of this band as well, Fiachna. In fact, the treasure that they’d amassed was quite remarkable. I imagine that someone was paying them a large tribute in gold,’ Caradoc’s eyes were bland, although his mouth was set in a thin line.

  ‘Treasure? What treasure?’ Sorcha asked. ‘You were just crying poor to us, pleading that you had no coin to add to the fund for mercenaries and weapons.’

  The two kings implicated in the extortion, Fiachna and Bleise, had obviously been unaware of the funds paid to Elphin’s band by the other, a coup that had been adroitly played by the dead outlaw chieftain. He had proved to be a dab hand at manipulation and, for one short moment, Caradoc regretted that they had executed the villain so quickly. What information Elphin possessed had died with him.

  ‘Perhaps you should explain, Fiachna,’ Maximus added with a twist of his lips that set the Durotriges king on edge with nervousness. Meanwhile, Adwen’s feet began to scrape back and forth on the coarsely paved floor.

  ‘There has been a large outlaw band attacking traders and small, undefended villages for several years now,’ Fiachna said in a conciliatory voice. ‘During that time, I’ve sent troops out to confront them on a number of occasions. But, after striking at my warriors from well-disguised ambushes, they always managed to elude us. I was suffering severe losses of men, equipment and coin. On each occasion, the bastards would attack my warriors, and then disappear into the forests like the mist. This happened over and over again. Ultimately, I was left with no choice other than to pay them to go away and leave us in relative peace.’

  Fiachna wrung his hands nervously and glanced at Sorcha and Gwaun, who were staring at their fellow king with distinct displeasure. Bleise was silent, but looked like a guilty schoolboy. Adwen was so cowed that he refused to meet anyone’s eyes.