The southern landowners were hedging their bets. They would follow the winner.
The outer circle around his straying wife and her new lover was warriors, several hundred of them. And he knew that if Severius received the support of most of the men and women around him, they could raise this many and possibly even more.
The stallion stood alone in the big corral where the horse fights were held. He’d obviously been bathed, his mane and tail braided, for the ceremony. He was beautiful with his black nose, legs, and tail setting off his shimmering silver body. He raced round and round just inside the high, barred fence, his dark silk tail bannered, held high, as he galloped the limits of his prison. So beautifully proportioned was the horse that he almost seemed small until he dropped from a gallop to a trot and it became clear that at the withers he was higher than any of the stablemen who watched him through the fence.
Big. The horse was huge, and no, nothing could defeat him. Uther shivered. He remembered what had been in the dog—Merlin—his ghost, his spirit? What inhabited the horse?
The horse ceased trotting, turned, and went and stood in the center of the corral. He looked bored and lordly at the same time.
“You see,” Aife said, “how big he is? They have a black . . . but no one expects him to be able to . . .”
Uther returned the harp to its case. The people who arrived with him scattered. The smell of roast pork drifted his way and he saw a dozen fire pits steaming at the outer edges of what he knew must be a ceremonial center. Beyond the corral and the viewing stands, a feasting hall loomed. It had a thatched rood and wattle-and-daub walls.
“For the soldiers,” Aife said, pointing to it.
“The amphitheater,” he said, and knew he was looking at it now around the hall, corral, and viewing stands. The sides sloped gradually upward, and he knew that with the roof of the hall occupied, the viewing stands full, and people gathered on the horseshoe-shaped mounding on the surrounding hillside, the ceremonial center would hold several thousand people.
“They used to, before the Romans came, choose a king here. Now they will again.” She pointed to a gibbet on the hill beyond the drinking hall. “They have taken a man already. When the feast ends, they will take a woman.”
Yes, there was a figure hanging from the gibbet.
“A woman?” he asked.
“Yes. Do you know, that was why I was so afraid. I think it will be me.” She looked up at him. The pupils of her eyes were so dilated that he could barely see the blue edging that was the iris. It was a bright day, but her fear opened them like ink-dark wells.
She continued, “I saw her with him last night. Even at the table, at the feast, she had her hand in his pants, playing with him. And while she was doing that, she was laughing and looking at me. Then he laughed, too, and studied me for a long time with a smile on his lips. They can’t hang a virgin,” she whispered.
No! Uther thought. No! Not even she would attempt . . .
But then he knew with an absolute certainty how far gone she was in evil now. And she would do anything that served her ends. He wondered if she would try to bring Severius to her crystal realm. Lay him on the same spot where she’d tried to take . . . what? What had she wanted from him?
Ustane said he would have died. Died of her love. Died like the drone bee in his final, savage mating with his immortal queen. Because that’s what she was now—not human any longer, but a creature whose habits were dictated by her terrible thirst. As indeed Merlin had been before her. He trod the maze of Dis now, and he would be in the horse if he could.
They were close to the corral. Most of the wealthy were gathered at the pavilion filled with tables near where the meat was roasting. Severius was dining with Igrane and a crowd of well-wishers and accomplices. Everyone not dining or drinking was reclining in the shade of the pavilion, nibbling snacks passed out by pretty young girls who carried trays of food and wine among the guests.
The poor were gathering at a series of fire pits scattered at the other end of the amphitheater. As he watched, one pit was opened. The spectators gave a joyous shout, but jumped back because a cloud of steam redolent with the smell of roast pork erupted from the pit. Nearby, over a low fire, women were cooking up a sauce for the pork, caramelized onions, honey, and wine. Without thinking, he put his arm around Aife’s shoulders. Then caught the death look Severius gave him from his couch in the pavilion.
Aife was looking in the same direction. “He knows,” she said.
“Indeed,” the king said. “He may well know.” Because Igrane was reclining beside Severius, the expression on her face one of raw terror.
Alex and Alexia moved up beside him. “We didn’t expect to see you again. She”—Alex indicated Aife—“told us what happened. How did you get away?”
“That’s not important. Conduct my lady to the peasant feast and never again leave her side. Not until I give my permission.”
“What are you going to do?” Aife asked.
“Stop your brother! More away, remember the child,” he whispered.
The three stood looking at him. “Can I trust you to take care of her?” he asked Alex and Alexia.
They were both pale. They both answered, “Yes.”
There was a shout from among the humble as two more pig pits were opened. The feast was in full swing now, and Uther was sure everyone for miles around must be gathered here, all feasting and drinking, especially drinking. That had started earlier, a lot earlier, than the eating.
Alex and Alexia led Aife toward the fire pit. He stood looking across the crowded square. Igrane was clutching Severius’s shirt with one hand and whispering frantically in his ear. Severius was studying Uther with a look of icy calculation.
Will he shed my blood? Uther wondered. There are consequences to shedding a king’s blood. Igrane knew that now.
He was standing to the right of the big corral that held the stallion. A whistling neigh pulled his attention away from Severius. A dog had somehow gotten into the enclosure. It was the sort of skinny cur that hung about the refuse dumps that appeared near any town or village. It had probably been drawn by the cooking odors and come hoping to beg some food. There were always some things the master race (human) wouldn’t or couldn’t eat, and the dog hoped to scavenge some of their leavings.
The stallion neighed when he spotted the dog. Then he reared, cried out again, and thundered toward the dog. The little animal was no fool. She—Uther saw the dog was a bitch; her dugs were elongated, nipples engorged; she must have pups somewhere. She fled immediately toward the high fence surrounding the corral. She should have escaped the stallion, but one of the onlookers gathered at the fence wanted blood. The bitch gave a shrill Yip! as an expertly thrown rock blinded her. In pain, she slowed and, blood streaming from where her eye had been, turned and tried to run in another direction.
But the stallion was upon her. Uther watched, glad it was quick as the little bitch’s head exploded into a hideous mist of blood and brain when one forehoof splattered her skull.
Then the entire crowd cheered the stallion on as the big horse trampled the dog’s carcass first into a lump of bleeding carrion, then into dust-covered scraps of pulverized meat and bone. When Uther glanced back at Severius, he saw that he and Igrane were both smiling. They were looking at the children playing in the tent, near Severius’s feet.
The world they lived in didn’t understand or tolerate deformity. Dwarves, the hunchbacked, the lame, or those otherwise impaired in mind or body were dealt with in a summary fashion, usually abandoned in situations where they had little chance of survival. But there were those who dealt in such creatures, usually powerful landlords who had connections with the slave dealers who shipped their human cargo to Byzantium, where there was a demand for such creatures among the aristocracy. An effete aristocracy, corrupt enough to be amused by their antics.
Uther had heard that if they were not too mentally impaired, these twisted creatures could be taught no end of diverting
tricks. There were about a dozen playing on a carpet close to Severius and Igrane. As Uther watched, Severius beckoned to one of his personal guards and pointed at a child playing among the rest.
The guardsman walked over and picked up the child by the scruff of the neck. He—it was a little boy—gave a loud screech, showing a big tongue and a mouthful of pointed teeth. The creature’s face and body were hideously deformed. The right mouth and eye were twisted by a scar that created a hollow in his cheek. He was so completely hunchbacked that his head seemed to be in the middle of his chest, and so bowlegged that Uther was surprised the creature could walk at all.
The child still dangling in his grip, the guardsman began to carry him toward the corral where the stallion stood, snorting over the dog’s remains. Realizing where he was being taken, the child screamed again, this time in terror.
A girl darted out of the pack of children and ran to the soldier’s side. She was also deformed. Her face looked as though it had been made of wax and the wax had run. One eye was higher than the other, the mouth twisted and slack at the same time. The nose was really no nose, only two openings in the face. The hideous features were placed above a perfectly formed doll-woman’s body. A dwarf, but exquisite body.
The girl witch—child or woman, Uther couldn’t tell—cried out, a wordless sound filled with anguish. She reached up with one hand, trying to touch the fingers of the boy being carried by the soldier. The boy looked down at her face, answered, and tried to touch her fingers with his. The soldier pushed the tiny girl away and gave the boy’s body a violent shake. But oddly enough, whatever brief communication the two shared seemed to quiet the boy, because he was silent and stared ahead with an expression of fatalistic acceptance on his face.
Uther could hear shouts of approval rising from the crowd around him. They were, he thought, enthusiastic about this new diversion.
He had a moment to decide what to do. No one would consider a child this badly deformed as human. In fact, it would be possible to rationalize the boy’s death as putting a merciful period to a life so filled with pain that it would seem more of a curse than a blessing to its possessor.
But this was folly and Uther knew it. What lives, with the occasional rare exception, wishes to live. Not should any living thing be deprived of life without good reason.
Alex appeared at his side just then. “What do you plan?” he asked the king.
The harp was slung over his shoulder. “Protect this,” he said, and handed it to Alex. “Take care of Aife. Get her to my sister, if you can. And try to find and free the mare.”
Uther gave the corral that held the stallion a long look. The uprights were sunk deep into the earth, each resting in the skeleton of a sacrifice made to assure the sacred enclosure. Most of the sacrifices were probably human. But the cross-poles were lashed to the uprights with rawhide and were the enclosure’s real weakness.
“You might also try to lower the fence, if possible.”
Alex nodded and vanished into the crowd. By then, the soldier holding the deformed child had reached Uther.
The king blocked his path. “I will take his place,” he said.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” the soldier asked. “This thing’s barely human.” He gestured at the child. “Ten times a year king horse has faced a human in the corral. Ten times the man or woman died. And all are buried under the uprights. Next year the corral will be one post bigger, and you will have the post in your belly and be lying there, the dry sand turning you to dust.”
Uther reflected, A high-prestige position Severius must be in. The effort to reach it must have been both his and his father’s. Ten years of victories.
Organizing an assault on the high king wouldn’t be easy. The man who pulled it off would have to receive the support of every administrative district in southern England. The big Roman-British landowners would have to be willing to commit most of the barbarian troops who kept them in power; the power that had fallen into their hands when the Romans departed forever.
But nothing ventured, nothing gained. If they could capture the High Kingship, they would command the country up to Hadrian’s Wall and sweep all before them the way the Franks had done in Gaul. In fact, Gaul was already losing its Roman name and becoming Franca, or France. The dark, violent barbarians had successfully come to terms with the Gallic-Roman landowners, intermarrying with them, recognizing Roman law and allowing it to exist alongside their own more rudimentary code. And together, the two peoples were struggling to keep the worst features of Roman rule intact: oppression, religious persecution, and exorbitant taxation of the independent farmers and craftsmen, those least able to bear the burden. Slowly, even this memory of freedom was flickering out.
I am one against the night, Uther thought.
He didn’t say any of this to the soldier.
“No! Bring the child back to his keepers and tell Severius, if you dare, that there are reasons why men ride horses rather than horses, men.”
The soldier dropped the child. It scuttled away as rapidly as possible, and Uther heard a wild, loud cry of enthusiasm from the crowd. What Severius had tried to do was little better than murder, but a strong, grown man might give the horse an interesting fight.
As quickly as possible, everyone began running to the sloping sandstone sides of the arena. Uther saw they were slightly step-cut to allow seating in rows, about ten rows to the top, and the sacred enclosure was shaped like a horseshoe, as was the corral. At the top were the best seats in the house, and many who had come brought chairs, cushions, and stools so they could watch in comfort. The other best seats were the viewing stands near the corral. These were already filled by the aristocracy from the pavilion. Severius and Igrane shared a comfortable couch at the top.
Uther turned and the wicked hatred in the horse burned from the beast’s eyes into his own.
“Are you there?” Uther whispered.
And Merlin’s voice answered, coming into his mind, Yes, and I am going to kill you, old man. Your hour has come. When I was in the dog at the inn, the music your fingers called from the harp held me at bay. But now we meet face-to-face, hand to hand, and your magic is powerless against me.
Uther nodded and began unwinding the velvet and brocade mantle he wore. He tossed it over one of the crossbars of the corral. He heard a shout rise from the crowd and a rustling all around him. At least two dozen of Severius’s soldiers had stepped up and were pointing their spears into the corral.
In the sudden silence, he heard Severius’s command. “Once inside the corral, O singer of songs, there you stay. If you try to escape the stallion by crawling or jumping outside, my men have been ordered to run a spear through your body.”
Uther didn’t trust himself to answer. In spite of his bravado when he spoke to the soldier, he was about as frightened as he had ever been in his whole life. He gave a curt nod to show he understood, then stooped over and dried his sweat-covered hands in the dust.
Then, as he accomplished this, he dropped down on his belly and rolled into the corral.
“Surprise, Merlin. Here I come,” he whispered as he cleared the bottom cross-beam.
The stallion thundered toward him, teeth bared. But Uther might as well have been born on a horse. His first ride was lost in the mists that surround early childhood, and he had known how to control any horse since he could remember. To him, riding was as natural an action as walking or running. There was nothing he didn’t know about the tricks the brutes could pull on a frightened or inept rider. He’d seen, endured, and learned to counter all of them. Yes, there are indeed reasons men ride horses, not the other way around.
The stallion plunged in, charging right at him. He came to his feet in the hero’s salmon leap, which takes a man to his feet in one movement rather than the two usually required. He dodged the stallion’s charge as the man-beast raised his forehooves to dash out his brains, as he had the dog’s.
When anything commits itself, brute or human, it’s v
ulnerable. A second later, he was behind the rearing stallion and gleefully took the opportunity to land a savage, solid, paralyzing kick in the balls. The stallion screamed in much the same way as a man might have, as a raw agony whipped through his body. Uther felt Merlin lose his grip on the horse’s mind. The tormented animal fled him, running to the other side of the corral and backing against the fence.
The horse backed so close to the poles that he ran one muscular buttock into the point of a spear held by the guardsmen who surrounded the corral. This time, the stallion shrieked with rage, spun around and snaked his head through the crosspieces and seized the shoulder of the guardsman who had inadvertently nicked him. The guardsman screamed and Uther winced as he heard the bones snap like rotten sticks between the horse’s teeth.
But Merlin was frustrated, and Uther could feel it. He was trying to regain control of the horse. He wasn’t interested in punishing or destroying anyone but Uther. The depth and dedication of his hatred was so deep that it surprised the high king.
“Why?” he asked.
“Not even Vortigen ever dared defy me as you have. Almost . . . almost I managed to put my own candidate on the high king’s seat. But you broke my hold over Arthur and I failed.”
By then Merlin was in control of the stallion, and he lunged toward Uther, thundering across the corral at him. This time, at the last minute the stallion pivoted and lashed out, aiming his iron-shod heels at Uther’s head and body. Uther dropped and darted under the horse’s belly, through the solidly planted forelegs, spun around, and delivered a powerful punch to the horse’s tender nose.
The animal screamed again. The soft nose and upper lip are, next to the place where the king had landed his first kick, the most sensitive spots on a horse’s body. Horses get nosebleeds; the nostrils are not only sensitive but large and filled with ropy blood vessels. Blood spurted from the horse’s nose and pain nearly blinded him, again loosening Merlin’s grip on the horse’s mind. This time the horse trotted away shaken, blowing through his bleeding nostrils, and kept his distance from the man.
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