by M. K. Hume
“Hurry up, Gareth. Your share of the food is starting to burn!” Lorcan’s bellow was urgent, so Gareth found the open entrance to the kitchen on the side farthest from the manure pit.
Gareth recognized signs of sweeping inside this room, where a broom leaned against the open entrance. This spoke well of the landlady, although Gareth wondered that any woman in this filthy port would battle dirt so obstinately. Perhaps, like her lost husband, she had memories of an earlier and cleaner existence where she had once been happy.
Lorcan was seated at a rough table on one of several uneven bench seats, as he ate with his usual voracious appetite. Oddly fastidious for a man whose feet were so dirty, the priest used the point of his eating knife to scoop up meat rather than use his fingers.
“Come in, lad. Come in and meet our hostess. This is Widow Eta, a lady who is, without doubt, the best cook in this whole benightedly heathen pit of iniquity.”
Lorcan indicated a plump woman who was wielding a double-pronged wire fork to turn over some slabs of salted bacon sizzling vigorously on a long plate of iron that rested over the glowing coals of the fire. Periodically, spilled fat flared as it struck the ruddy coals with small explosions of flame. With innate courtesy, Gareth bowed, and the woman flushed at the compliment. Eta raised a perspiring face, surrounded by curling tendrils of sweat-dampened hair. She curtsied sketchily and grinned as she exposed a missing front tooth from her upper gums.
Despite this small flaw, the widow was a very attractive woman who wore her obvious Saxon ancestry in her face and her figure. Tall for a woman, she was well over five feet ten inches in her bare feet, and very broad in the shoulder and hips. Her hair, kept in order under a crimson scarf, was golden blond and inclined to curl; most men would have described her as pretty, with her small, rosy mouth, ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and large, pillowy breasts.
“Welcome, Master Gareth. I’ve heard much of you from this sorry excuse for a man of learning, but I can see with my own eyes that Lorcan hasn’t exaggerated.”
Eta turned and spoke directly to the priest. “He’s a good-looking young man, Lorcan, and I can tell he drives the girls fair crazy with them muscles and that long white-blond hair he sports. Bless me, but I’d tumble him myself if I weren’t handfasted to my dear Odo. But, as you well know, Lorcan, I remain a faithful wife.”
“Yes, my dear! Your Odo is a very lucky man, wherever he is,” Lorcan replied tactfully and winked at Gareth.
Mistress Eta had seen the wink and clouted the priest over the knuckles with the flat of her fork, a blow which caused the joker to yelp in mock pain.
“Sit yourself down, lad, and I’ll fetch you some porridge with berries and honey. And then we shall give you some of our fresh bacon. What country did your parents call home, young master? I can tell you’re not from the land of the Britons.”
Eta fetched a bowl of porridge from a black pot hanging over the fire, while Gareth seated himself carefully on the lopsided seat. Among the many treats on the table, the young man immediately noted a honeycomb that was lying on a platter, oozing amber honey. But this bustling, grubby port was no Caer Gai, and Gareth would search in vain for any salt, an expensive item that only the wealthy could afford.
The lad excused himself for a moment and returned to the inn with one of his packs. In it Gareth found a twist of parchment in which he had stored one of Lady Nimue’s parting gifts, a large packet of rock salt in an oilskin container.
When he gave his gift to Eta, she looked delighted.
“Is this for me, Master Gareth? You do me far too much honor, sir, for this rock salt is worth nearly as much as this whole kitchen. Truly, this gift is too valuable for a lowly innkeeper in this flyblown port.”
With trembling fingers, Eta took only a quarter of the salt from the oilskin, before transferring her treasure into a small pot with a tight lid. The bulk of the salt was rewrapped and pushed across the table towards Gareth.
“This is rock salt, not the muck that Paidraig, the herbalist, palms off on us from his seawater vats. I am not greedy, Master Gareth, so I must insist you take the rest of your gift back. I thank you for what I have taken because it is beyond value to me. You can be sure, young man, that this house is yours whenever you wish to stay here.”
Gareth was touched by her gratitude. Belatedly, he realized he had embarrassed the innkeeper with his generosity and cursed himself for his lack of tact.
Silent now and fully engaged in eating his first real food in three days, Gareth devoured two plates of porridge, a large slab of bacon, and three thick slices of fresh bread to sop up the last of the juices, all of which was washed down with passable mugs of beer. Replete and content, Gareth leaned back and thanked his hostess with complete honesty.
“I’ve rarely enjoyed a meal like this, Mistress Eta. I must say too that it tasted even better for being prepared by your own fair hands.”
Then Gareth rose gracefully, bowed, and kissed Eta’s free hand. Her palm was faintly scented with lavender, and Gareth found her cleanliness pleasing in this town of filth and ordure. The journey ahead would be much more tolerable if Lorcan could conjure up more inns of quality like this one in Dubris.
For his own part, he would now cherish Nimue’s gift of rock salt as it deserved.
• • •
A SORE AND sorry Germanus joined them shortly before noon. He was nursing a painful head and an irritable temper, but the three companions began to talk seriously once the tall Frank had drunk several mugs of beer and eaten an amazing amount of bacon.
“Well, where do we start?” asked Gareth. “I have no idea, so I depend on your superior knowledge of the landscape.”
“Finally!” Germanus noted. “I was almost certain that you’d try to avoid us and hare off into the continent on your own. Where’s Taliesin?”
“He’s ill and weary, and halfway down the stairs that lead to death. He’s going to rest for the time being and will join us in Saxony once he has recovered his strength. It may take as long as a year for him to catch up with us. How far would we travel in that time?”
Both men stared incredulously at Gareth. Germanus understood that the young warrior was ignorant of the countries that lay beyond Britannia, and considered the whole jaunt to be a simple ride into the north. He tried to explain the magnitude of the task ahead of them.
“While we were waiting here, we decided to ask the local Saxons about the Dene warriors that made up the raiding party. At first, we gained the impression that no one at this port had ever heard of them.”
Lorcan nodded his agreement. “We thought that you’d got the tribal name wrong, but then we were fortunate enough to meet up with a Jute seaman who answered all our questions. He almost took our heads off out of sheer hatred for the Dene nation.
“The man’s name is Erikk Eanwulf and it seems that his father had lost all their possessions when the Dene drove his family southward into the land of the Angles, a secure haven where they survived on the bare bones of family charity until Eanwulf was in his teens and had taken a wife. At any road, the poor bitch was killed by a Dene hunting party, and the invaders seem to have infiltrated the last of the Angle and Jute strongholds and driven the defenders into the south. Erikk eventually arrived in Dubris, accompanied by the last of his kin and a hostile attitude towards every Dene inhabitant of the northern lands.”
Lorcan paused for breath and Germanus took over. Drawing a lump of charcoal from the fireplace, the Frank began to sketch a primitive chart on the pale stone of the hearth. Britannia was depicted as a rectangular shape separated from the mainland by a narrow stretch of water. Then Germanus quickly roughed in the outline of the coastal mainland, right up to the northern climes where a small peninsula thrust its way out into the sea.
“Pretend that the peninsula I’ve just drawn is Jutland—and that’s the land which is now inhabited by the Dene.”
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�That?” Gareth gasped. “It’s too small! The whole country would fit at least four times into our lands. How could such a fleabite be responsible for so much trouble?”
Lorcan and Germanus remained mute.
“Anyway, how do I know this scrawl is correct?” Gareth asked with a suspicious stare.
“You don’t!” Germanus was curt with irritation. “You have a knack for rubbing everyone the wrong way, Gareth, especially people who are trying to help you. I’ve seen a number of small fragments of maps detailing parts of our world during the time when I served with the Franks some twenty years ago. I’m working from memory now, for there are very few charts in this world. Taliesin is a fortunate man, for he has access to a complete collection of rare maps drawn by Myrddion Merlinus.”
Lorcan cut in over his friend’s attempt to explain. “What studies have you done, boy? When did you last travel through distant lands, boy? Your quibbling is an insult to those men who wish you well. You cast shame on this fine man who should be at home with his wife and sons rather than gallivanting over the countryside assisting such an ingrate as you.”
It was Gareth’s turn to hang his head in regret now, so Germanus continued with his lesson. “The Romans left the Britons a treasure trove of very good charts. And before you ask, the journey we are proposing could take us nine or ten months, even if the circumstances under which we travel are uneventful.”
Gareth became increasingly glum. “But why would such a simple journey take so long?”
“We will be forced to travel through the lands of many foreign kings.” Lorcan raised one hand and proceeded to tick off each tribal group as he named them. “The Salian Franks, the Alemanni, the Neustrians, the Austrasians, the Thuringians, the Frisians, the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes, and, if we’re really unlucky, the Sorbs lie between us and our eventual destination. You can also add the Pomeranians, the Obotrites, or the Lotharingians to these tribes, for we will pass by their borders. None of these tribes likes each other very much, so the only time they agree on anything is in their hatred of outsiders. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s us!”
Gareth tried to imagine how so many tribes were competing for the richest lands, the deepest mines, and the best rivers.
“The Dene tribes are moving farther and farther into the south,” Germanus added, and then drew a line with his charcoal that stretched downwards from the north into Jutland. “Their initial invasion displaced the Jutes, who, in turn, displaced the Angles, and they displaced the Saxons and the Frisians, et cetera and et cetera.” The thin black line of charcoal spread southwards, and then into the east and the west to intrude into the east coast of Britannia as a reference point. “Much of the present flood of Saxons migrating to Britain was initiated by the early expansions of the Dene people.”
“Oh!” Gareth gulped. A world of regret was obvious in that simple sound.
“Yes!” Lorcan agreed. “If we survive all those competing tribal groups, it will take us at least a year to get through Saxony in one piece.”
“So . . . when do we begin? Arthur and his companions are waiting for us, and God alone knows what the Dene will do to them while we’re trying to reach Jutland.”
“The first ship will dock within the next couple of weeks, so we should begin our preparations immediately,” Germanus warned. “But now that we know you’re serious about this journey, we can make our plans. Firstly, are you well supplied with coin that will sustain us during our travels?”
“Arthur made sure that I carried all our funds as we traveled along the roads leading into the Otadini lands. My master realized that I’m frugal to a fault.” Gareth grinned crookedly, and both older men saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. “At any road, I also have coin given to me by Bedwyr and his family, prior to my departure from Arden, plus more coin advanced by Nimue and Taliesin.”
“By the bare breasts of Venus, boy,” Lorcan swore with very unpriestly imagery. “There’s five pieces of gold here.” He continued to sift through the coins, many of which were stamped with the likeness of the long-dead Valentinian, one of the last of the Roman emperors. “Fifteen silver coins and a pile of bronze, copper, and tin pieces of various worth. And look, Germanus, there’s a pearl ring—a real pearl—and a small ingot of green Cymru gold. And there’s a brooch here that is . . .” His voice trailed away in wonder.
Words failed the older man as he picked up a huge breast pin of gold, cut gems, and electrum. “The workmanship in this piece is beautiful, but I can’t place the style.”
“Lady Nimue gave this piece to me. She assured me that Myrddion Merlinus received it from a kinglet from Babylon when he lived in Constantinople, wherever that is. I protested that we were unworthy of such a princely gift, but she swore that Master Myrddion would have gladly given us this bauble, and more, to save his master’s only son from harm. Only the greatest need will induce me to part with it.”
“Give us the base coin and two pieces of silver,” Germanus said softly. “That amount of coin will be more than enough to purchase our passage, including our horses, although we should consider selling them and gamble that we can find better mounts on landfall. The remainder will buy us provisions that will last for a month or more after we reach the mainland. We may have to purchase extra space on the vessel, because it would be better to outfit ourselves here rather than gamble on what we can obtain in Gesoriacum.”
“Meanwhile, you must keep that pouch directly over your heart, boyo. You mustn’t show it to anyone, even to a lover.” Lorcan’s face was extremely serious. “Men here will kill for a copper, let alone coins of real worth. And the ladies are worse! There’s no limit on what they’d do to us if they became aware we were holding a large store of gold and valuables.”
Mutely, Gareth obeyed and tucked the pouch away inside his undershirt.
“And then we must practice our martial skills,” Germanus continued. “And yes, you’re included, old man. I’ll admit that I’m rusty and you’ve been carousing and whoring for a year or more to my knowledge. As for Gareth, I’ve no idea how skillful he is, so he needs to impress us with his ability to use his weapons. Also, we should practice in public so that we can dissuade any cutthroats who have designs on our possessions. After your very public arrival, the ostler will have told all and sundry about the quality of your stallion. Once our practice begins, we’ll be as ready as we can be when the first vessel arrives to take us to the continent.”
• • •
IN THE WEEKS that followed, the thaw continued to release the earth from its winter fist, and buttercups, snowdrops, and daffodils made the muddy verges of the road bright with their massed blossoms. A festive air overlaid the filth of the town and even the cracks in ruined buildings and broken mosaic floors were softened by cascades of weeds and clumps of hardy flowers. Dandelions made a bold showing, and Eta’s vegetables flourished.
Each morning, the three men went through a disciplined ritual of exercises, using swords, shields, knives, and bows. The rigorous training had all the grace and elegance of a complex, deadly dance as the companions worked on honing their skills and hardening the muscles that had weakened during the long winter. The two older men labored hard to maintain their flexibility.
“I’ve rarely seen a better swordsman than you, Gareth,” Germanus told the young warrior without emotion. “Arthur is better, but he was born with extraordinary physical attributes that surpass yours. I can tell you that your father must have been a master swordsman, because he has trained you to perfection. One thing I’m sure of is that skill and will, if you’ll pardon the rhyme, are not always enough. Listen to your instincts, Gareth, for that feeling in the gut is sometimes more reliable than the hardest muscles or the fastest arm.”
“My father taught me that combat can often be meticulously planned out. He was trained by Targo, the great sword master who trained Artor, the High King. I’ve been told that some veterans sti
ll pray to Targo and ask him to intercede for them with God, an odd belief when we consider that Targo was a pagan. Targo believed that you can determine the course of any engagement if you approach an enemy directly and force him to fight on your terms.”
Germanus bit his thumbnail. “Your father’s methods certainly work on nine occasions out of ten, but it’s the one exception to the rule that will get you killed. For starters, your enemy might have been trained to take the initiative back from his opponent, after previously having relinquished it. This warrior won’t respond as you want him to because he uses his senses and his instincts to guide his strategy. Such a warrior has no obvious flaws. You can’t really anticipate what he’ll do next, because he doesn’t know himself. He is the most dangerous of all.”
“Think about what Germanus is saying because he’s usually right!” Lorcan gasped, as he raised his sword in a series of painful, complex moves. “But don’t take too long, for there’s a ship approaching the port even as we play our little games. We’ll be on the Litus Saxonicus within hours.”
Gareth stared seawards at the harbor and was rewarded by the sight of a sail on the far horizon.
Several hours elapsed before this vessel made landfall, allowing the process of unloading passengers and cargo to begin. Barrels, boxes, and packs of goods that would soon be on sale in the town were the first items of cargo to be taken off, while wine was transported in the old way, in huge terra-cotta amphorae sealed with beeswax. Even as the ship emptied, the captain was hard at work accepting passengers and cargo destined for the land of the Franks. Tablets of wax and a stylus recorded all transactions.
