The Hallowed Isle Book Four

by Diana L. Paxson

  Cataur was shaking his head, complaining about bad harvests and hard times.

  “The seasons have been no worse here than elsewhere,” Artor put in suddenly, “and you never suffered from the Saxons. Even here in Isca you have found folk from Demetia to repopulate the town. You have the ships, and men who sail to Armorica every moon to steer them. And you shall have them back again once they have made a few voyages for me.”

  “Very well, that is fair enough.” Abruptly Cataur capitulated, grinning through teeth gone bad with age. He had never really recovered from the wound he took in the last Saxon revolt, and his sons led his armies now.

  “I will not ask you for more than a company of men,” the king went on, “and your son Constantine to lead them. Together, we will raise more troops among your cousins in Armorica.”

  Cataur scowled at that, but Constantine was smiling. Not quite old enough to fight at Mons Badonicus, he had grown up on tales of the heroes of the Saxon wars. Artor suspected he regretted never having had a chance to win his own glory. Long ago Cataur had been a contender for the kingship, and Constantine, who came of the same blood as Uthir, was a potential heir. Let him come and show what he was made of in this war.

  “And from the Church,” Artor went on, “I will ask only a tithe of grain—”

  The abbot of Saint Germanus, who was also bishop for Dumnonia, sat up suddenly.

  “It is for men to tithe to the Church, not the Church to men!”

  Cups and platters jumped as Artor’s fist struck the table, impatience getting the better of him at last, and everyone sat up and paid attention.

  “Do you wish your brethren in Gallia to pay in blood instead? The Frankish king may call himself a Christian, but his warriors have little respect for churchmen. The murdered monks win a martyr’s crown, but that does little good to the souls for whom they cared!”

  In the silence that followed he sensed movement under the table. He had drawn back his foot to kick, thinking it a dog, when he heard a giggle. Frowning, he pushed back his chair, reached down, and hauled up by the neck of his tunic the small, dark-haired boy who had been hiding there.

  “And whose pup are you?” Artor tried to gentle his tone as he set the boy on his knee.

  The color that had left the child’s face flooded back again. “Marc’h . . . son of Constantine. . . .”

  The king shook his head, smiling. “I think you are Cunomorus, a great hunting dog who is waiting to steal the bones! Here’s one for you, with the meat still on—” He took a pork rib from his platter, put it in the boy’s grubby hand, and set him down. “Run off now and gnaw it!”

  Flushing again at the men’s laughter, the child scampered away.

  “My lord, I am sorry—” Constantine’s face was nearly as red as his son’s.

  “He’s a fine lad, and does you credit,” answered Artor, with a momentary twinge of regret because he had not known his own son’s childhood. “Enjoy him while you can.” Perhaps, when his army was assembling at Portus Adurni, he would have the time to visit Medraut in Venta and say farewell.

  He looked down the table, his expression sobering, and the Dumnonians sighed and prepared to take up the argument once more. If they fought in battle as hard as they were fighting in council, Artor thought ruefully, this campaign was certain to go well.

  Medraut walked with his father along the bank of the Icene, where some forgotten Roman had planted apple trees. Long untended, they had grown tall and twisted; the ground between them littered with branches brought down by storms. But the trees had survived, and on their branches the green apples were beginning to swell.

  I am like those apples, thought Medraut. Wild and untended, still I grow, and no power can keep me from fulfilling my destiny.

  Just over the hill, three thousand men were camped in tents of hide; the meadows behind them were full of horses, but here in the old orchard they might have been in a land deserted since the last legion sailed over the sea. To Medraut, Britannia still held a world of wonders. Why did the king want to go away?

  Artor was gazing across the marshes, his eyes clouded by memory.

  “I fought a battle here, when I was a little younger than you . . .” said the king. “The man I loved best in the world was killed, and I took Oesc, who became my friend, as a hostage.”

  “And now I am hostage to Ceretic’s son—” observed Medraut. “How history repeats itself!”

  Artor gave him a quick look, and Medraut realized he had not entirely kept the bitterness out of his tone. Since they had last met he had gotten taller, and he no longer had to look up to meet his father’s eyes.

  “They are not treating you well?” There was an edge to the king’s reply that made Medraut smile.

  For a moment he considered telling Artor that Cynric had been harsh to him just to see what his father would do. But whether or not Artor believed him, the consequences would not serve his purpose. He shook his head, scooped up a little green apple that had fallen untimely, and began to toss it from hand to hand.

  “Oh they have been kind enough. Indeed, they remind me of my own tribesmen in the North. No doubt I fit better here than I would among the cultured magnates of Demetia. That, if anything, is my complaint. I left my mother’s dun because I wanted to learn about my father’s world.”

  “Would you rather I sent you to Londinium?” Artor asked, frowning. “I suppose I could arrange for you to be tutored there. Or perhaps one of the monasteries . . .”

  “Father!” Medraut did not try to keep the mockery from his laugh. “You cannot imagine that the good monks would welcome me! Nor do I wish a tutor! If you want me to learn the ways of the Romans, take me with you to Gallia! You have just told me—at my age, you were fighting battles. Do you want the Saxons to be your son’s instructors in the arts of war?”

  He watched as anger flushed and faded in the king’s face, or was it shame? He grows uncomfortable when I remind him, Medraut noted, but he is too honest to deny it. It had occurred to him, some months into his exile, that Artor could easily deny their relationship and brand him a deluded child. He realized now that it would be against the king’s nature to do that—it was a useful thing to know.

  “I wish they did not teach their own!” came the muttered reply. “But you must learn from them what you can. You are getting your growth, but if you were with me there would still be danger. In Gallia the priests have great influence. I will have a hard enough time getting them to accept me. . . .”

  And your incestuous bastard would be a burden you do not want to bear! It would have been different if his father had loved him. But why should he? Medraut knew well that his begetting had been an accident, and his birth a revenge. He should count himself lucky that the king felt any responsibility towards him at all.

  It did not occur to him to wonder why he should want Artor’s love. There was only the pain of realization, and an anger he did not even try to understand.

  “So you will not take me with you?”

  “I cannot—” Artor spread his hands, then let them fall to his side. He turned and began to walk once more. “I am leaving the government of Britannia in the hands of my queen. If there is trouble here, you must go to Guendivar.”

  Medraut nodded, then, realizing his father could not see him, mumbled something the king could take as agreement. His eyes were stinging, and he told himself it was the wind. But as anguish welled up within him, he threw the apple in his hand with all his strength. It arched up and out, then fell into the river with a splash. Together he and Artor watched as the current caught and carried it towards the sea.

  V

  THE HIGH QUEEN

  A.D. 507—512

  AT CAMALOT SOMEONE WAS ALWAYS COMING OR GOING, AND one got used to the noise, especially now, when a series of hot days in early June had opened every window and door. But the voices outside the small building where the queen did her accounts were getting louder. Guendivar set down the tallies of taxes paid in beef or grain as Ninive
came in, her fair hair curling wildly in the damp heat.

  “My lady—there’s a rider, with messages from Gallia—”

  The queen’s heart drummed in her breast, but she had learned to show no sign. Suddenly she could feel the fine linen of her tunica clinging to back and breast, and perspiration beading on her brow. But she waited with tightly folded hands as the messenger, his tunic still stained with salt from the journey oversea, came in.

  “The king is well—” he said quickly, and she realized that her face had betrayed her after all, but that did not matter now. She recognized Artor’s seal on the rawhide case in which he sent his dispatches, and held out her hand. The swift, angular writing that she had come to know so well blurred, then resolved into words.

  “. . . and so I am settled once more at Civitas Aquilonia. The rains have been heavy here, and there is some sickness among the men, but we hope for better weather soon.”

  She would have been happy to share the sunshine they were having here. But if the weather on both sides of the narrow sea was the same, Armorica would be drying out by now. Artor had not been used to write to her when he travelled in Britannia. But now the queen seemed to be his link to home. Deciphering his handwriting was only one of the many skills she had acquired since the king left her to rule in his name.

  “The news from the south of Gallia continues bad, at least for the kingdom of Tolosa. Chlodovechus is moving against the Goths at last, and this time I do not think Alaric will be able to hold. For us, it means peace for as long as it takes for the Franks to digest their new conquest. But in another year or two, they will look about them and notice that this last Roman stronghold is still defying them.

  “I judge that I have that long to forge alliances among the British chieftains of Armorica that will withstand the storm. Dare I hope to restore the Empire of the West? I no longer know—but where once I saw Gallia as territory to be regained, now I see men who have put their trust in me, and whom I must not betray. . . .”

  There was a break in the writing. The remainder of the letter was written in a different shade of ink, the writing more angular still.

  “Tolosa has fallen. The Visigoths are in full retreat, and the Franks boast that they will keep them on the run all the way to the Pyrenaei montes and beyond. They are probably correct. Alaric must want very much to put a range of mountains between him and his foes. He will be safe in Iberia, for a time. But I predict that one day a Frankish king will follow, dreaming of Empire. Unless, that is, we can break their pride. Already we are seeing refugees from Tolosa, both Romans and Goths. If they wish to join the fight here they will be welcome. Some, I may send to you in Britannia.

  “Watch well over my own kingdom, my queen. You hold my heart in your hands. . . .”

  How, she wondered, was she to take that? Surely, Artor was referring to the land, but for a moment she wondered what it would be like to claim not only his duty, but his love. She had almost understood it, listening to Merlin’s poetry. But even unclothed, Artor kept his spirit armored, and the moment of possibility had passed. It would require some power even greater than Merlin’s, she thought sadly, to bring him to her arms. . . .

  She tried to tell herself that her husband’s absence had at last made her a queen. Was she still fair? She did not know— men had learned that she was better pleased by praises for her wisdom. She had grown into the authority Artor had laid upon her, and discovered that she had a talent for rule. She might have failed him as a wife, but not as Britannia’s queen.

  But each letter revealed more of the man hidden within the king, the human soul who had guarded himself so carefully when they were alone. Artor had been back to Britannia only three times since beginning the Gallian campaign, brief visits spent settling disputes between the princes or persuading them to send him more men. Guendivar had scarcely seen him.

  And she missed him, this husband whom she was only now coming to know. If it was her beauty that had unmanned him, she hoped that she had lost it. She reached for a piece of vellum, and after a moment began to set down words.

  “To my lord and husband, greetings. The weather here has turned hot and fair and we have hope for a good harvest. I can send you some of last year’s grain store now, and the taxes from Dumnonia. Gualchmai has brought his wife to Camalot. She is an intelligent woman, well read in the Latin poets, not at all the sort one would have expected Gualchmai to choose. But he is happy with her—the wild boy grown up at last. The news from the North is not so good. Morgause writes that your lady mother is ailing. If we hear more, 1 will send you word. . . .”

  Guendivar paused, remembering the lake that lay like a jewel in the lap of the mountains, and the hush that one feared to break with any but sacred sounds. She had been there only once, but the memory was vivid. And yet she had no desire to return. She was a child of the southern lands, and her heart’s home was the Vale of Afallon.

  * * *

  Merlin moved through the forest as a stag moves, scarcely stirring a leaf as he passed. But when he reached the river he was an otter, breasting the surface with undulant ease. When night came, the senses of a wolf carried him onward. But when he noticed at last that he was weary, he sank down between the roots of an ancient oak and became a tree.

  Waking with the first light of morning, he thought for a moment that he was a bird. The pain of limbs that had stiffened with inaction brought him back to awareness of his body. He stretched out one forelimb, blinking at the sinewy length of a human arm, furred though it was with wiry, silver-brindled hair. Splayed twigs became fingers that reached out to the smooth, rune-carved wood of the Spear, which he had continued to carry through all his transformations.

  With that touch, full consciousness returned to him, and he remembered his humanity. To stay a bird would have been easier, he thought grimly. A bird had no thought beyond the next insect, the next song. The long thoughts of trees, slowly stretching towards the skies, would be better still. A man could remember the message that had started him on this journey; a man could weep, trying to imagine a world without Igierne.

  He gazed at the wooded heights above him and knew that the instinct that guided him had led him deep into the Lake-land hills, where once the Brigantes had ruled. A few hours more would bring him to the Isle of Maidens. Animal senses rugged at his awareness—he scented wild onion on the hillside, and grubs beneath a fallen log. Food he must have, and water, but it was necessary that he complete this journey as a man.

  When Merlin came to the Lake it was nearing noon. The water lay flat and silver beneath the blue bowl of the sky; even the trees stood sentinel with no leaf stirring. Human reason told him that such calms often preceded storms, but a deeper instinct gibbered that the world was holding its breath, waiting for the Lady of the Lake to give up her own. When he climbed into the coracle drawn up on the shore, he pushed off carefully, as if even the ripples of his passage might be enough to upset that fragile equilibrium.

  * * *

  The priestesses had set Igierne’s bed in the garden, beneath a wickerwork shade. Merlin would have thought her dead already if he had not seen the linen cloth that covered her stir. Nine priestesses stood around her, chanting softly. As he approached, the woman who sat at the head of the bed straightened, and he saw that it was Morgause. The clear light that filtered through the wicker showed clearly the lines that had been carved into her face by passion and by pride, but it revealed also the enduring strength of bone. Distracted by the surface differences in coloring and the deeper differences in spirit, he had never realized how much she looked like her mother.

  Igierne’s eyes were closed; her breathing labored and slow. Her silver hair rayed out upon the pillow, combed by loving hands, but he could see the skull beneath the skin.

  “How long—”

  “Has she lain thus?” asked Morgause. “She weakened suddenly two days since.”

  “Have you called on the power of the Cauldron?”

  Morgause shook her head, frowning. �
��She forbade it.”

  Merlin sighed. He should have expected that, for the power of the Cauldron was to fulfill the way of nature, not to deny it. Morgause spoke again.

  “Yesterday she would still take broth, but since last night she has not stirred. She is going away from us, and there is nothing I can do.”

  “Have you slept?” When she shook her head, he touched her hand. “Go, rest, and let me watch awhile. I will call you if there is any change.”

  It was good advice, though Merlin did not know if he had given it for her sake, or his own. Her anger and her need battered against his hard-won composure.

  When she had gone he leaned the Spear against the post, sat down in her place, and took Igierne’s hand. It was cool and dry; only when he pressed could he feel the pulse within. He closed his eyes, letting his own breathing deepen, matching his life-force to hers.

  “Igierne . . . my lady . . . Igierne. . . .” Awareness extended; he felt himself moving out of the body, reaching for that place where her spirit hovered, tethered to her body by a silver cord that thinned with every beat of her heart.

  “Merlin, my old friend—” He sensed Igierne as a bright presence, turning towards him. “Do not tell me I must come back with you, for I will not go!” The radiance that surrounded them quivered with her laughter.

  “Then let me come with you!”

  “Your flesh is still bound to the earth. It is not your time. . . .”

  “The years pass, yet my body only grows stronger. The only thing that held my spirit to the human world was my love for you!”

  “When you wandered, I watched over you from the Lake . . .” came her reply. “Now I will love you from the Hidden Realm. It is not so far away—”

  He could sense that this was true, for beyond the flicker of her spirit, a bright doorway was growing. He was aware that Morgause had returned, but her grief could not touch him now. From a great distance, it seemed, his mortal senses told him that Igierne’s breath came harshly, rattling in her chest. The chanting of the priestesses faltered as someone began to weep, then resumed.