It was not shared by the king of Lothian. Modred appeared stymied by his brethren’s purpose. He and Alyn not only served the same church but were both descended from the Grail lineages.
“My lord archbishop,” Alyn addressed him, “I was privileged to spend last night in Mons Seion at the invitation of the abbess Mairead.”
Modred nodded, a quickening in his dark eyes revealing he understood more than what Alyn said. Certainly if he and Gwenhyfar had been in constant contact, he would know about the fate of the genealogies.
“While completing the queen’s request at Mons Seion, God revealed a message for this assemblage—for all who ponder war and bloodshed—a message I must deliver for the unity of His church and all the peoples of Alba, believers and nonbelievers alike.”
“Accomplish this, Priest,” Brisen said next to him above the mixed response of the multitude, “and even this high priestess of Cailleach, our mother of creation, would hear more of your God.”
“It will be my honor,” Alyn replied.
Before Alyn’s very eyes, Modred’s expression turned to stone. Alyn steeled himself against the same uncertainties that must have assailed the likes of the old prophets. He would either open the cold eyes boring into him to the light … or make a deadly foe.
To God be the glory.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“God has seen all your deeds and revealed them to me that your darkness may see light.” Alyn encompassed the dais with a sweep of his arm. “Conspirators all, not for God’s glory, but for your own gain.”
Modred shot up from his seat. “I will not hear such blasphemy against an archbishop of the Grail Church, not from some wet-eared pup of a priest!”
“But these good people would.” Cassian, it seemed, had found some backbone and an unbecoming dose of smugness. “Especially if you lead them into war for your own gain.”
“As you push Arthur to establish Rome’s authority over the British church?” Modred challenged back.
At the edge of tolerance, Drust held up his hand. A tall, distinguished adviser who stood behind the throne seat leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Drust nodded. “Gentlemen, both my druid Beathan and I feel that this is a matter for your God, not us,” he exclaimed. “It is the border conflict that concerns the Pictish people.”
But Cassian and Modred turned upon each other like two vipers tossed into the same basket, inflaming the onlookers beyond Drust’s control. Controversy spread like wildfire clan to clan around the arena. Fortingall’s guards rallied to diffuse the arguments that became physical here and there—believers and nonbelievers, warmongers and those who craved peace.
“My lords,” Alyn shouted in a vain attempt to regain control of the proceedings.
The cacophony was deafening, enough to drive a man away from the lot, leaving them to their own end.
“Glorify Me.”
Alyn knew what had to be done.
“All of you,” he warned his companions, “get as far away from me as you can at the edge of the area and remain there, no matter what happens.”
“But Alyn—” Kella glanced fearfully at his satchel.
Alyn kissed away her objection. “Angels,” he reassured her. “Egan …”
The champion nodded. Only Kella suspected what Alyn was about. But Egan and the others trusted him enough to follow his command and would see that she did as well. If something went awry, only Alyn would suffer.
Consumed with purpose, he moved to the center of the arena. Carefully, he eased the package he’d made that morning out of his satchel. It was bound tightly in leather, like the one prepared in Abdul-Alim’s workshop for the apothecary. But protruding from it was an innocuous length of coiled string.
He dug a small hole in the dirt with the end of his staff and fixed the package firmly in it, then stood upright and assessed the circle of humanity about him. Nearly double the longest dimension of Abdul-Alim’s workshop. More than adequate room for safety.
He hoped.
Borrowing from Idwyr’s flair for drama, Alyn paced sunwise around the circumference of the clearing. At the easternmost point, where Kella and his friends waited, he winked. There and at the southernmost, westernmost, and northernmost extremities, he tapped the earth with his staff, as if marking it in some ritual and prayed that, by God’s grace, all were beyond harm, including him. Yet, at the same time, he prayed for a spectacle that would gain him the ear of pagan and believer alike.
Quadrant by quadrant fell silent in his wake. By the time he returned to the package and picked up the end of the attached string, even the leaders upon the dais gave him their undivided attention. Alyn could almost see Merlin Emrys smiling down at him from some heavenly loft. His old friend loved drama and sciencia almost as much as the Word.
“What is this?” Drust demanded. By now he was more than annoyed. He’d not only lost control of the proceedings, but an upstart priest had seized it.
“I beg you, my lord, order your guards to keep everyone outside the circle I marked, for anyone inside risks a terrible death.”
Uncertainty darkened Drust’s face. In his world, an unseen God’s displeasure was no threat, but Alyn’s druidic drama set all the pagan king’s earthly senses on edge. He nodded to the guardsmen awaiting his orders. “Do as the man says.”
Alyn brandished his staff, swinging it full circle simply to see for himself that the king was understood, but to many who observed, the supernatural was at work. Alyn prayed it was. God forbid anyone be injured.
Next to Drust, Modred and Lorne conversed quietly, their attention fixed, like everyone else’s, upon Alyn. He turned his back to the conspirators. Not even they would risk harming him in front of so many onlookers. Backing away from the package slowly, Alyn uncoiled loop after carefully wound loop.
Attached at the other end of the string, which ran through a pin-sized hole in the outer wrapping, was a plug to a vial of the same plant extract that Alyn had packed along with his master’s black salts for Abdul-Alim’s customer. Alyn now knew what had caused the explosion. At least he thought he knew.
The glass vial of the oil had broken when his teacher stepped on it, cutting and leaking through the wrapping around the black salts. Separate, each was harmless, used in salves for skin afflictions. Even when mixed, as Alyn had done the night spent in the Roman fortress, they produced the smallest flame. Never would he have guessed them capable of the blast that destroyed the workshop.
It had to be the binding that made the difference. Alyn prayed he was right, because in that hole was the last of his teacher’s preparation of the substances. This was Alyn’s only chance to use it—this time for good.
The string reached its full length. One sharp tug …
Alyn hesitated, shuddering as the vision of the death-dealing disaster flashed in his head. Faith, it branded him even now, for his scar screamed in anguish. So much that his senses retreated from it, making him feather light.
Nay! Alyn grappled for them with a will beyond his own.
“To God be the glory!” he shouted.
And yanked the cord as hard as he could.
The arena came into focus. His feet bore the weight of his returning consciousness. He watched the hole, breath held.
Nothing.
Alyn replayed the vision in his mind. How long had it taken for the mix to—
A roar from the far end of the field yanked his focus from recollection to where a man broke through the guard’s line, shouting madly, “He deceives you all with wizardry and makes me the fool!”
Elkmar! The captain seized a sword from one of the Fortingall guards and charged across the arena, his course set straight for Alyn and the package between them.
“No!” Alyn motioned Elkmar away … and the disarmed peacekeeper in his pursuit. “Guard, go back! Go back or die!”
The guard heeded Alyn, but Elkmar charged on, deaf to all but the feral lust for blood on his contorted face.
It was the last call the c
aptain heard on This Side.
A thundering monster of fire and smoke burst out of the ground, consuming Elkmar as he passed the pit. The very ground trembled under Alyn’s feet. Dirt scattered, stinging the flesh of those closest to the barrier. The onlookers fell away, some to the ground, others at a run. Some screamed. Others cursed.
Soon the black smoke of the beast’s form began to dissipate in the spring breeze, but there was nothing left of Errol’s captain. Nothing but unrecognizable bits of charred flesh …
And a sword lying on the blackened ground near the hole that Alyn had dug. Except the small hole was now a crater at least two lance lengths in diameter.
God’s mercy! Numbed by icy revulsion, Alyn bowed his head and made the sign of the cross. Elkmar’s maniacal charge had left him no chance of repentance, no chance for God’s grace. Given that yesterday Alyn was ready to help Elkmar and his lord Lorne to the Other Side, the irony of this regret was not lost upon him as he turned to face the white-faced men, frozen where they stood, or crouched, upon the dais.
“Thus saith the Lord!” he bellowed, arms raised to the heavens. “Will you hear me now, kings and priests?”
Alyn cast his eye upon Modred and Cassian—the two most despicable of the lot, for they were avowed men of God. His throat was dry and raw from the smoke as he repeated his demand.
“Will you hear God’s word for you now, sirs?”
“A born merlin.” Just as Mairead had said that morning. Never had Kella been more frightened for Alyn or proud of him. Her husband had won the attention of every eye and ear that had not fled and feared to return. She could only imagine the courage and faith it had taken for him to loose the fiery monster that had haunted him beyond the healing of his flesh. ’Twas worse than she imagined, though she did not mourn Elkmar’s loss.
Kella followed Queen Brisen, at the lady’s request, around the crater and its blackened skirt of grass to where the gentle Heilyn had fainted in her throne seat. Heilyn’s ladies-in-waiting had been among the many who fled in hysterics. While those closest to the spectacle brushed debris off their fair finery, some of the soldiers found backbone enough to leave their posts and stamp out patches of grass still burning on the ground.
“There was once a kingdom blessed by God that turned on itself, dividing into two kingdoms. Israel was threatened by foreigners, and Judah was content to let Israel fight the enemy alone. God sent a prophet to warn their leaders—” Alyn looked first to Cassian, then to Modred. “But the leaders wouldn’t listen. They had their own motives to satisfy, motives that had naught to do with following their God.
“Just like these men before you today. You two abuse the name of the Christ with your misdeeds, one as vile as the other,” Alyn railed against Modred and Cassian. “You do not have the interest of God’s church in mind, Archbishop Modred, not when you seek to turn God’s children against each other. It matters not if they believe in the Father or nay, He cares for them,” he added for the sake of those unfamiliar with God.
“Your God didn’t care for that man.” Drust glanced, fear-struck, at the crater where what remained of Elkmar’s blackened torso steamed like a roast fresh from the pit.
“You care for your children, my lord,” Alyn explained gently. “Yet they must at some time face the consequences of their actions, do they not?”
Nodding, Drust covered his queen’s hand. The gesture warmed Kella’s heart. He loved the mother of his children. Such love would open a heart for Alyn’s petition for the Word.
“Modred,” Alyn addressed the Lothian king, “God has shown me the white dragon that you hide beneath your robes. Aethelfrith Flamebearer,” Alyn commanded, “show your face if you dare!”
Kella’s gasp of astonishment was one of many. With her gaze, she searched the company of Lothian, many priests of the Celtic Church. But who among them would even recognize Bernicia’s brutal High King if he were in their midst? Not her.
When no one stepped forward, Alyn was unfazed. “Have you not learned from Vortigern’s example?” He turned to the onlookers. “These good people know the curse Vortigern brought upon us!”
Nods and shouts of assent answered him. Every Albion-born child had been told how, after Vortigern allied with the Saxons against his own kind, the Germanic savages slew his son and drove the British warlord into Wales. From the resulting enemy foothold in the south, British kingdom after kingdom along the coast fell—and were still falling—to them.
“I am not Vortigern.” Frost coated each word Modred spoke. “I seek to unite my Pictish neighbors against yon Roman eagle disguised as a church.”
“Hah!” Alyn mocked. “You, Modred of Lothian, seek vengeance for your father’s death at Arthur’s hand. Worse, you seek to betray Arthur as your father—and Vortigern—did, by allying with the Saxon wolves. And there’s the vengeance you crave to satisfy your wounded pride,” Alyn derided before Modred would weave another lie. “How dare Arthur choose Urien as his successor, when the role was promised to you!”
“I am the natural choice. My father is Pictish. My mother is Arthur’s own British aunt. And I know a trick or two also, so tread softly, boy,” he threatened lowly, though his thin-lipped mouth barely moved.
“The evil eye,” Heilyn whispered, covering her face as if the hard onyx gaze Modred leveled upon Kella’s beloved was truly a spell.
Modred knew how to stare a man down in the old way, reduce him to a shivering mass, and put the fear of more than God into him as Alyn had done the crowd with his sciencia. Believing themselves cursed, many had died from such intimidation.
But the archbishop had not met the likes of Alyn O’Byrne.
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,” Alyn quoted to him. “You know well this is God’s Word. Revenge is God’s right, not yours.”
Lorne growled like an angry dog on a leash from the seat next to Modred’s empty one. “My lord, let me deal with this madman.”
His father-by-law ignored the offer. Had Alyn penetrated the king’s hardened heart with this truth?
“It is not too late to make right your intentions, my lord archbishop,” Alyn reminded Modred, brother to brother. “Follow not your father’s example, nor Vortigern’s. Allow your hostage Cassian to return to Strighlagh with me … to speak on the queen’s behalf to—”
At the mention of Cassian, Modred’s brittle disposition snapped.
“He is the enemy, not me.” The Celtic archbishop thrust an accusing finger at the Roman one. “He seeks to establish Rome’s authority over our British church. Ask your wife how he manipulates Arthur to that end. If you’ve eyes to see and ears to hear, see and hear how your own cousin’s reputation has been defiled by him because she is a priestess of our church.”
“You speak the truth,” Alyn conceded, “for God has revealed that also.”
Cassian’s indignant gasp surely pulled at the leaves of the yew overhead. “Nonsense, utter nonsense!”
“Do you think God has not seen your sin as well, Cassian?” Alyn challenged. “We are none without it,” he reminded the archbishop.
“I have done nothing but serve God and His church.” Despite his huff of righteousness, Cassian’s guilt gleamed damp and rosy upon his face and the bald circular tonsure on the crown of his head.
“You, sir, have fostered distrust between my cousin and her husband.”
“Gwenhyfar sought to betray the church,” Cassian blustered. “She ran to the bed of her husband’s enemy. I did not send her there.”
The insult to the queen cracked Modred’s cold, dark armor, when naught else would. “By God’s wrath, you slander us both, you little weasel of a man! I will have your blasphemous tongue and feed it to the dogs!”
Modred lunged at Cassian, but Drust’s guards stepped between them and confiscated Lothian’s jeweled dagger from his belt. After being escorted firmly to his seat, Modred offered a stilted defense of the lady.
“Gwenhyfar came to me to speak for Arthur and resolve our differenc
es,” he said. “Sadly, I was not at Din Edyn, or I’d have fought to the death to defend her and her honor.”
“And why did she remain?” Cassian replied, smug behind his guards.
“Because she feared the husband you turned against her with your lies about our church,” Modred replied.
That was true. Gwenhyfar had shared information about Arthur’s irrational outbreaks with Kella, made more frequent by his closeness with Cassian. Foolishly, Kella had shared them with Lorne—a traitor and deceiver of the worst sort.
“You, Cassian,” Alyn charged, “promised the Dux Bellorum that your church had the authority to spare Arthur from Columba’s curse—the prophecy that the Dux Bellorum would not live to inherit his birthright as king of the Scots. Not God’s church. Yours!”
“That is a lie!” Cassian declared.
“Cassian,” Alyn reprised gently, “God knows.”
“He believes that Rome has authority over the church founded by our Lord’s family and followers … perhaps even before the one in Rome took root,” Modred fumed.
“Modred, Cassian, listen to your own words,” Alyn pleaded, lest pandemonium ensue again. “This debate is for a church synod. Drust cares naught about these matters. How can we win favor for God’s love when we do not demonstrate it even among ourselves?”
Folding his arms across a broad chest, Modred resumed his icy simmer.
“Come now, brethren.” Alyn held out his arms as if to embrace the two enemies. “And let us reason together, saith the LORD.” He chanted the poetic words again, this time lifting them with music like a bard that the crowd might hear.
Since there was never a Celt not drawn to music, the discontent among the onlookers hushed.
“Hear the good news, people!” he sang, that his message might fall like soothing rain upon a parched earth. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.”
“But …” Alyn brought his staff down hard upon the dais, giving those closest to him a start.
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