Rage, Uther thought, is debilitating. Fear is invigorating. A horse will in any case tire more quickly than a strong man.
Uther began to dream of victory. He reckoned without Severius.
The stone came out of nowhere, slicing open his upper cheek. He tasted blood on his lips. The second rock caught him just above the right eye, landing a glancing blow that tore open his forehead and blinded him in that eye as blood spurted from his forehead and poured down, blocking his vision.
The stallion chose that moment to charge again.
Uther tried to dodge, but the horse invented a new tactic. He swung his forehead at the man and, keeping his sensitive nose tucked under, slammed him into one of the uprights of the corral. Uther felt the wind go out of him in a whoosh, but his countermove was instinctive. He moved to one side, seized the horse’s braided mane, and vaulted onto the horse’s back.
The animal went insane. He reared almost straight up, screaming, enraged. For a second, Uther looked out over the heads of the crowd and a clear view of the screaming mass of people gathered around the uprights—spears at the ready, Igrane and Severius at the top of the viewing stands, fear and astonishment on their faces—all of this imprinted itself on his brain. Then another well-thrown rock smacked hard against his temple and his consciousness flew apart, shattering like a fine glass vessel when it hits the floor—into shards of dazzling light.
But even in the sudden darkness, he heard the howl rise as one from the throats of the spectators as the crowd became a mob. A second later, he was flying through the air, knowing he would land hard. But to learn the hero’s salmon leap is to learn how to fall. His shoulders took the impact and he twisted as he landed, knees drawn up, heels driving downward, spine rigid, lifting him to his feet again.
A second later, he heard a scream as the first rock thrower died at the hands of the mob, and then another terrified shriek as the second rock thrower came flying headfirst through the crossbars and landed at the horse’s feet. The maddened animal and Merlin were in full accord. The rage of one and despair and frustration of the other were ready to spend themselves on any target, and the prone man was the closest target. The horse reared and the iron-shod hooves came driving down. As with the dog, a spray of blood and splinters of bone flew into the air. Enraged and completely out of control, Merlin’s control or any other’s, the stallion reared again and again, trampling the shattered carcass before him into an almost unrecognizable lump of blood, meat, and scattered, brighter-red fragments of bone.
Uther had time to retreat to the other side of the corral, get his breath, and allow his head to clear. Victory was within his reach. For the first time in his dangerous journey, he sensed he’d won.
The stallion’s fury was turning to exhaustion, and the sorcerer’s grip on the animal’s mind was slipping. The horse stood blowing like a bellows, his satiny coat covered with foam, legs trembling, staring down at the corpse in front of him.
“Merlin!” Uther commanded. “Speak to me. You boasted you knew how to win this engagement between myself and the dread Lord of the Other World, King Bade of Anwin. You boasted you knew how to get him to release my son.”
“I lied!” the sorcerer sneered at his opponent.
Uther began walking toward the exhausted animal.
“Beware, sorcerer. I am the king, King of the Living, the yet unborn and the dead. I command you! Speak or I will banish you from the beast’s mind to wander forever, to hang from the tree where dangle the heads of traitors and the foresworn rejected by both paradise and Gahanna, where Dis Pater rules. Leaving your soul caught between worlds in eternal misery, loneliness, and despair.”
The horse lifted his forefeet and let go a cry of sorrow so profound that Uther heard a gasp of amazement from the spectators surrounding the corral. They seemed surprised that an animal could make such a sound.
“Answer me, consular lost in darkness, lest you spend eternity fleeing to escape my curse!” Uther reached the horse, twined one hand in his mane, and vaulted up to his back. “Answer me,” he whispered, “and I will set you free.”
“Truly, I do not know. The answer is couched in the form of a riddle. But I will speak what wisdom I have garnered as I searched the omens. The madness that troubles my mind is a torment. I would give my life to be set free.” For the first time there was a plaintive note in the sorcerer’s voice.
“A fair exchange. Tell me what you know,” Uther said. “And you have my word, I will set you free.”
A strange sense of his own power shook him, and the crowd was silent as he urged the weary stallion into a cooling walk around the corral.
“The sword,” the sorcerer said, “is in the stone, and she must bring Arthur the sword that is in the stone. He must lie with the Flower Bride of England and she must bring him to the sword that is in the stone. When he holds the sword in one hand and the cup in the other, he will be king in both worlds. That is all I know. All I have ever been able to learn.”
“And so, sorrowful spirit, be gone,” Uther cried aloud. “Be—gone!”
The horse he was riding became only a horse, not a killing machine, and he recovered from the battle and seemed content to have the man on his back. Uther found he could guide the stallion with his posture and his knees. He was one of the finest horses Uther had even been on, and within a few moments of beginning his cool-off, the wild blowing ceased and the animal got his breath back. The crowd surrounded the corral three-deep, waving their hands through the bars or climbing the crosspieces, trying to touch the man or horse and cheering wildly. Entertainment was only rarely a part of their lives, and what they had seen today was the stuff of legends.
Even the Roman emperors had been afraid of the mob at the arena, and most often had not dared to cross them. Severius and his glittering guests in the viewing stand looked intimidated. Severius was sitting upright on his couch, his arm around Igrane, her hand resting on his thigh. He was white with fury.
When the cheering died down and he could be heard, he bellowed, “Loose the black!!!”
He was answered by wild cheers from the crowd. They tore away from the corral, back toward their positions on the sloping sides and top of the arena. Then Severius turned and spoke in an undertone to one of the Saxon mercenaries near him, a big, powerful man wearing a golden helmet and carrying the long shield of a true cavalryman.
The big mercenary began rounding up his compatriots and positioning them around the viewing stand to protect Severius and his guests. Uther reflected that Severius’s people had no reason to love him, and his latest atrocity—murdering the young man who dared marry without his permission—had not endeared him to them. No, not at all. In fact, it might have been the final straw.
He turned the horse and brought him to the center of the corral. The horse stood quiet, breathing evenly. Even though his coat was still lathered, the perspiration was drying now, and since Uther was riding bareback, he could feel that the temperature of the big body between his legs was cooler. The horse’s breathing had slowed dramatically. He was recovering from the exertions imposed on him by Merlin’s turbulent spirit.
God! Uther thought at the stallion. I love you and even if this struggle ends in my death, it has been an honor to bestride so magnificent a creature.
From beyond the arena, Uther heard a wild challenge of another stallion. He backed the horse to the part of the corral facing the entrance to the horseshoe-shaped arena and they stood facing the opening. Uther glanced at the viewing stands from the corner of his eye. The Saxon mercenaries were gathered three-deep around them, but people were slipping away. The mercenaries might prevent anyone from entering, but those leaving were another matter. A lot of them, it seemed, didn’t care for what they were seeing. They had seen one of Severius’s servants murdered by the mob in less time than it took to blink an eye, then another shoved into the corral to be pounded to death by the horse.
There was obviously no love lost between Severius and his people. Some of them proba
bly recognized Uther, and they told the rest. They suspected this day might not go well for all concerned, and they didn’t want to be here when the riot started.
Then his attention was pulled away by the sound of another challenge from the gateway to the arena. The black horse reared against the sky. He was held by two grooms on each side. The ropes were attached to his headstall, but he reared, plunged, and fought his handlers every inch of the way.
Conversely, the gray, with Uther on his back, stood quiet. He only blew through his nostrils, stamped his forefeet, and arched his neck.
Uther knew how such fights went. They would lead the black to the fence and allow the two males to get their blood up. Then, since there was no gate and the crossbars were tied into position with only rawhide, they would drop enough of the crossbars on one side for the challenger to jump the remainder and pen the two stallions together in a fight to the death. This would never happen in nature. There, the loser could retreat or flee.
No, Uther decided. It was not going to happen that way . . . not today. The gray stallion had already fought a battle royal with him. The black was fresh and ferocious.
Uther leaped from the stallion’s back. The corpse of the man who had thrown the rocks at Uther was still lying on its face . . . certainly he had a knife. Uther ran toward him, kicked the shattered corpse over on its back.
Sure enough! A sax crossways through the soldier’s belt, blade bare, as some carried them, held by a stud at the belt line. Uther snatched it away from the corpse and ran toward the fence.
At the sight of the black stallion, the few remaining spectators had fled to better viewing points on the sides of the basin. The soldiers who had been around the corral were guarding Severius. Now he needed protection more than he needed Uther held captive.
A few knife slashes freed three of the cross-poles. Uther ran toward the stallion and gave him a terrific slap on the rump. The stallion galloped across the corral, gaining speed with every bound, leaped the two remaining cross-poles, and thundered toward the black.
The black’s handlers pulled off his headstall and ran for their lives. A second later, the two stallions crashed together, breast to breast. A tremendous shout rose from the crowd and those still remaining in the viewing stands.
The black was no weakling. The gray bore him back on his haunches, but he did not fall. The gray was larger; his flying forehooves pounded the black’s chest and neck. But the black could bite and did, sinking his teeth deep into the gray’s shoulder until blood poured over the gray’s chest and forelegs.
Both animals seemed glad to break and circle each other, tails high-bannered, looking for an opening. The black charged again, neck snaking down, trying for one of the gray’s forelegs. But the gray spun around and lashed out with his heels. The black dodged a skull-crushing kick in the face, but took a thunderous blow to the ribs that staggered him for a second.
Then the two began circling each other again. Again they slammed together, chest to chest, rearing, slamming at each other with their forefeet. The gray lost his balance and went over backward, screaming, mane and tail flying. The black charged in, forehooves slamming down on the gray’s face, neck, and chest.
But the gray was rolling as he landed, and a second later, he was on his feet. He looked dazed and was bleeding from a half dozen wounds inflicted by the black’s hooves on his face and chest. Uther expected him to flee as the black pressed the attack. The gray’s face and chest were sprayed with scarlet and blood was trickling from his nostrils. But he met the black’s lunge and returned blow for blow with his forehooves.
The black backed, and both horses circled again. Both animals were bleeding seriously, big, scarlet drops splattering into the dust at their feet. To Uther’s surprise, he saw that the black, fresh in the beginning, was now breathing harder than the gray. Less stamina, or had the gray’s kick broken a rib? But Uther didn’t know if the gray had another charge in him.
Then both animals backed away and stood stock-still. Aife appeared just outside the opening to the arena. She was leading the mare.
The gray reared, a magnificent sight even with his coat flocked with bloody lather and his mane and tail a wild tangle. He screamed, a cry of both possession and ferocity, and charged again.
The black turned tail and ran, thundering past Aife and the mare at the entrance and away, out across the fields springing green. Aife loosed the mare and Uther did the most dangerous thing he’d ever done in his life. He ran toward the stallion, seized the mane, and vaulted onto his back. He drove in his heels and the stallion, accompanied by the mare, began a circuit of the horseshoe-shaped arena.
Once—the stallion flew around the viewing stands, past the wildly cheering people on the sloping sides of the arena, around the empty drinking hall, over the ruins of the pavilion where Severius and his friends had gathered earlier in the day to feast and drink.
Twice—around the arena. Uther, from the stallion’s back, saw most of the well-wishers Severius had gathered were gone, fled like the losing horse.
A third time and this time he bellowed above the shouts of the crowd, above the thunder of the stallion’s hooves in the dust, “The horse is a king horse, and only a king may ride him! I am a king. Thrice-crowned King Uther of the House of Pendragon! High King of Alba, my native land!”
Then the stallion stopped and the mare presented her tail to him. He mounted her, Uther still mounted on his back. The king had a moment’s fear that his kick might have injured the stallion in an important place. But he felt giant loins beneath him bunch and relax as the stallion penetrated the mare, then bunch and relax again and yet again as his powerful thrusts sank deep into her body.
All around him the arena went insane. Severius’s unhappy tenants charged the drinking hall and the viewing stands. Just before they collapsed, Uther saw the Saxon mercenaries surround Severius and Igrane and rush them away. The mob streamed out of the arena in pursuit.
The mare cried out, then the stallion, and Uther felt the stallion’s spasms of completion shake the beast’s powerful body like a minor earthquake. Then he dropped back and the mare pranced away. A second later, Aife had the mare and was pulling on her headstall. A second after that, she was on her back.
The two horses and the man and woman mounted on them ran from the arena enclosure, turned away from the villa and its surrounding fields and, breaking into a gallop, fled away into the golden afternoon.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She was sitting in a grotto filled with maidenhair fern. On one wall of the grotto, across from where she sat, a waterfall flowed down into a rock basin at her feet. The maidenhair ferns were lush drifts of deep green on wiry black stems. No human knew about this place, and she was more happy about that than not. Humans were destructive animals, and she wanted to hear the lost maidenhair sing for as long as they could survive.
The maidenhair, wild splotches of pale green on the black stems, sang of the fern world long before when conifers, cicadas, and flowering plants had not yet appeared and their cool, green, gentle darkness dominated the earth. They sang the balletic minuet of four cooperating stages that, perfectly realized in the dance with rain, gave rise to more gentle green life and they covered the rocky earth.
The ferns sang of a world even before her time, when tree ferns of types unimaginable to modern creatures formed vast forests where they and dozens of varieties of moss fruited and sent their spores into the winds and the whole earth was nourished by their touch. Lichens, those symbiotic algae of a dozen—no, a hundred—kinds splashed every bare rock surface: red, gray, green-gray, orange, ruffled and flat pink, and black, their colors shining in the almost endless warm rain.
She closed her eyes to pick out the colorful threads of the ferns’ music, then opened them to look into her mirror. She widened her eyes, making them larger. No. Might work in a painting, but not with real eyes. They took up too much of her face.
She studied the fingernails on her right hand. She wished them longer,
and they grew. Stained with henna, they became talons a bird of prey might envy. She sighed. No, they would probably frighten him and, if not, he would laugh. She changed the colors to blue, then black. Corpselike. She studied the mirror and made her lips blue. God! No! She looked dead, a drowning victim.
Still, it might give him a perverse pleasure to couple with a corpse. She could lie very still. No, that was not her idea of fun. Nor his either, she suspected.
“Shit!” She put the mirror in her lap and spoke to the ferns. “I’m bored. I just hope he’s becoming the warrior he wants to be.”
She studied the mirror, its back gold, gracefully curved in a classic, very utilitarian design, an oval rimmed with leaves rather like a wreath, overlapping one another. The leaf pattern was so subtle they seemed less leaves than the suggestion of leaves. The face was highly polished silver. It had no handle, but was held between the thumb and second finger.
Where had she gotten it? She tried to remember. At a town. It considered itself a city, but it would be a small town to any city worthy of the name now. Near the Dardanelles. What was the name? Ah, yes, Troy.
She haunted a pool, an oracular pool at a temple near the house occupied by the chief priest of the city. The priest’s house looked down across a low wall, on a beach where the traders pulled their shallow-draft vessels up on the sand and haggled with the chief’s men and rulers of the city. They needed to come here, those traders. There was no other place along the coast where they could stop and take on food and water for the long journey across the blue Aegean to reach the cites and towns that were rising everywhere near rivers and springs. Growing wheat, not gathering it, and heady with their new riches, pastures filled with sheep, flocks of goats, and even the dangerous aroches, tamed wild cattle.
These people felt the wealth of the world; amber, gold, and loose nuggets of raw silver belonged to them, and they possessed the wealth in butter, new-made cheese, and, strangest and most visionary of all, beverages, wine—enough to buy what they wanted. The traders who provisioned themselves below the walls of Troy were ready and willing to sell them all they could gather on their voyages.
The Raven Warrior Page 44
