Arthur Imperator

by Paul Bannister

  With Maximian’s single-mindedness, his wish to regain his military reputation would be eating at him like acid. He had lost an empire and a fleet to me, I had executed his junior emperor Constantius Chlorus and, despite a successful invasion, he had not been able to pry me out of my stronghold. Now, he had been forced to leave, business unfinished. I knew how that would rankle him. He would be back, and he would not rest until he saw me dead.

  The reports I received from Londinium brought bad news. When the city fell, Maximian had found among his prisoners four soldiers of my personal guard, the Chevron elite veterans who had been my war companions and who had gallantly earned their proud distinction. At the urging of Allectus, a man who had never put on armour in anger, a snake who whispered and manipulated his way to power, Maximian did not just execute my men, he had stripped and whipped them, paraded them naked and bleeding, put out their eyes, then had personally gutted and beheaded two of them on a scaffold so that his cowed, assembled troops could witness it all.

  That done, he had addressed the mob of citizenry to castigate my men as responsible for the destruction of Londinium. Two of my good soldiers of the Chevron still stood, naked, blinded, bleeding and torn from this Roman’s cruelty, but the bastard was not done. He incited the mob again, and they behaved as he knew any mob would, and led by a few planted ringleaders, stoned those two brave men to death. I have seen stonings, and thank Mithras I did not see this one, because it is a brutal way to die and there is nothing very much left of the body when it is done.

  I would have wept in rage had I been there, but I do not cry. No tears came from my eyes when I heard of the crime, but my heart ached and I vowed that those responsible, chiefly Maximian and Allectus, would be punished, and in their own coin. Blood trickled between my fingers from the split flesh where I had squeezed my fist too hard around the hilt of my dagger.

  Maximian’s brutal demonstration had two purposes: he was showing his own soldiers what punishment might await them for wrongdoing and he was telling me how he would treat me should I ever become his prisoner. I spat at the floor. I’d eat his heart for what he had done to my companions. He and Allectus would both die for their deeds, and I would see to it that they died at my hand, knowing who was administering justice. I’d done it to one emperor, I’d do it to another. And, doubly to the traitor who had betrayed his own Imperator.

  XLII Raid

  Allectus had never forgotten viewing the map Guinevia had composed, a view from the skies of the land beneath, and he had set his spies to work to discover who made it, and how. A girl slave who talked too much and who listened too hard outside doors had learned Guinevia’s psychic spying secret, and soon, Allectus had it, too. The worm promptly had the slave girl strangled. He was building bridges with the Saxons who had promised him a kingdom of his own and a secret like that was worth a great deal. It must be his alone.

  The traitor confided to the Saxon warlord Skegga that Myrddin and Guinevia had a magic that he must unravel and he needed the use of a war band of warriors for a few weeks. He would take one or both of the wizards and torture them into giving up their secrets, which he, Skegga, could use for himself.

  “You will be able to see your enemies, you will be enabled to view the world, lord,” he urged. The Saxon was reluctant. He had doubts about interfering with sorcerers.

  “They have nothing to protect them, lord, but a few incantations,” Allectus dismissed his fears. “They are women’s weapons, things only to scare naughty children.” Skegga was hesitant, unwilling at first, but Allectus assured him that any evil could not come to a great king, and the manipulator got his way. Soon, he set off with a war band to cross the country to misty Wales, where Myrddin had returned to oversee the springtime lambing of his flock.

  Guinevia was in her chamber with Milo, a sturdy seven year old by now, watching the boy as he played on the floor with toy wooden horses, galloping them up the flanks and back of Arthur’s big hound Axis, who was lolling, grinning alongside. Since the big dog had almost died defending the boy from a wolf, he had been Milo’s constant companion, tolerant of anything the boy did, but alert to any potential danger. He offered a threatening growl to any stranger who approached too carelessly or too closely and was perfectly capable of guarding his small human. Arthur, who had seen his hound kill an armed man to save his own life, pretended to complain that Axis was no longer his dog. Secretly, he was pleased that the big hound had adopted the role and still grieved inwardly over the tragic mistake he had made in killing the dog’s litter mate.

  Guinevia smiled at the peaceful scene in the chamber and turned to the table where she had been writing. She glanced down into the obsidian block that was her viewing stone and her trained eye discerned a movement. On the instant, the dog came alert and growled, looking at her with chin lifted and intelligent brown eyes staring. The growl started something in the seer’s mind and she seemed to click into another level of consciousness that was ancient, deep, and primitive. Her eyes turned back to the glossy black volcanic glass.

  As if she were viewing it from the distance of just a few hundred paces, she saw an image. Allectus, his cloak streaming behind him, was cantering his horse at the head of a column of armed men along a hawthorn-hedged road. The vision faded swiftly, the dog was still growling, still fixing her with his intent gaze. The Druid looked again, deeply into the obsidian’s smooth blankness. Another view waited her. Here was the familiar image of tall, dark Myrddin, his rangy figure in its scholar’s grey gown striding across a sheep-dotted field. Axis growled again and in a single heartbeat, Guinevia understood.

  She stood quickly, sweeping her skirt around her legs, and gave her son a perfunctory smile. “Stay with Axis, little one,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment.” The dog thumped his tail on the floor, the boy nodded, unconcerned. She left swiftly, heart pounding hard. She had to find Arthur and tell him of the dangerous and imminent threat she had just viewed.

  They were saddling Corvus and detailing off troopers while I threw a few necessities into my saddlebag. A handful of gold in small ingots, some dried mutton, a flask of wine. My red wool military cloak rolled and tied behind the twin rear saddle horns. Exalter on the hip. Stuffed forage net slung behind the saddle, too. Forget the shields, this was swords, bows, lances only. Check that the horn-handled, narrow knife was at my waist. Climb grunting into the saddle. We were to travel fast and light and our corn-fed, Frisian horses were up to the task. I did not know where Allectus had been when Guinevia viewed him. He was probably still on the long Watling Street that sliced diagonally northwest across Britain, if he had come from Colchester. Or maybe he was ahead of us already.

  At Chester, we were only two hard days’ ride from Myrddin’s Welsh eyrie under Yr Wyddfa, but I did not know when the traitor Allectus had left on his mission to harm the wizard, so I commanded extreme haste. It would take at least five days for the murderers, for so I assumed them to be, to cross the country. I had already dispatched four couriers to ride to Myrddin at top speed, to go ahead of our armed group and whisk him away to safety, but I had no way of knowing when Allectus had started his journey, and even a half hour could be vital.

  I had ordered extra guards on Guinevia’s quarters and sent riders to monitor the Roman roads west, both the coastal route and the inland high road we would join. Now we were cantering our big war steeds out of the gates and westwards, up over the moors. We would head for the long lake and the bleak rockfast mountains before we could turn again to the wind-blasted crest of the high pass where Myrddin chose to live and commune with both his gods and his demons.

  Our route took us close to the village I had burned down, one that had been the lair of brigands who had kidnapped and abused Guinevia, and who had killed two of my soldiers. They had paid their grim price, and Allectus would pay another. But first, I had to intercept him, or else Myrddin and perhaps through him, Guinevia, would be paying another. I kicked my heels into Corvus’ sides to urge him on. We did not rest that
night, we halted only to water our steeds and to give them a handful of oats, but otherwise, we walked them on all night. We had to push forward, and anyway, they were war horses and we were hurrying to a private war.

  We saw the horse when we were still several miles from Myrddin’s house, and a jumble of thoughts poured through my mind. The sorcerer’s retreat, I knew from previous visits, was a square edifice built from cut Roman stone taken from the old marching fort nearby. The Romans had chosen the spot strategically, at a place where three passes came together high under the north eastern flank of the sacred mountain Yr Wyddfa. Partly because the region was a wind-blasted one, Myrddin had enclosed his precious gardens inside a high-walled courtyard. Partly because of its remote location and the threat of strangers, he had equipped the wall with two iron-bound oak gates. He could lock those gates at night and enjoy fair security as he slept, I knew, and this gave me some hope that even if we were late arriving, he might have been able to hold off Allectus and his men.

  When we saw the horse and realized it was the mount of one of my couriers, whom I had sent ahead, my chest tightened. A loose horse usually meant a dead rider. Had my couriers been intercepted? We kicked hard at our big horses’ ribs and galloped the last distance over a spur of the mountain until the house came into view, down-slope a quarter mile or so distant. Allectus’ band was there, between us and the building, but they were dismounted, crouching in the hummocky grass. Two of his riders were about 200 paces, a full stade, away from their comrades and holding the horses.

  At once, I signalled a stop. The house was upwind, noise of our arrival had not reached Allectus and his men. I called out my instructions urgently. Four of my men rode off at once, full tilt, spears levelled, at the two horse holders. Their job was to drive the beasts away. If they killed the two raiders, so be it. I wanted the raiders and their mounts separated. Then we could kill them more easily.

  The rest of us kicked our gallant Frisians forward, holding them to a canter. I wanted to arrive in a line, I wanted to arrive with thunder and terror and death-dealing steel, a sight of irresistible power that would freeze our victims. The raiders felt the thudding of our horses through the ground, turned, gaped and we were upon them. Foot soldiers caught in the open by dragoons are destined to be raw red meat for a butcher’s shambles and this was the case.

  Two of the raiders fired arrows but had no time to nock another. Most ran, and were cut down from behind, great gashes opened in their undefended heads and shoulders. Several fought and died under my troops’ heavy spatha swords, but the rest, including Allectus, knelt in submission, hands on their heads, weapons laid down. It was done in just minutes and my weary troopers were binding wrists, removing personal weapons, herding the cowed, sullen captives. A few were out on the moor, finishing off the badly wounded with that short upward thrust of the knife under the ribs, then the twist that is such a merciful release.

  For the first time, I examined the house. The gates were bolted, there were scorch marks on the stone of the walls. A face peered warily out of the barred Judas hole in the gate. I called out that it was Arthur and heard the bolts slide and the door creak, then a sword point came around the slowly-opening barrier.

  “Is that you, Arthur?” I heard Myrddin’s voice, querulous.

  “It is I, Lord Myrddin,” I said.

  “Well,” he answered.

  “Where have you been until now?”

  The story came out swiftly, and left me agape at Myrddin’s magic once again. At dusk the previous evening, the gardener Pattia had run in from the pheasantry outside the walled garden, breathless with the news that three horsemen were approaching, and fast. She and the house slaves had secured the gates before the men arrived. They gasped out their story: they were Arthur’s couriers, sent to warn the Druid, and just a few miles back they had crossed paths with a raiding party that Arthur believed was coming to kill Myrddin. The raiders had missed the road and were coming back to it, guided by a shepherd they had caught. When the two groups clashed, one of the couriers was killed, the others had sped away, and now the raiders were only a short distance behind in the gathering dark.

  The Druid assessed the men, told them to turn their horses loose on the moor and brought the riders into the walled compound. “Be ready to defend this place,” he told them. “I am going to get something to eat.” One of my couriers later told me what happened next.

  Allectus rode up at the head of 20 or so raiders and demanded that the gates be opened and Myrddin handed over, or he would slaughter all within. Myrddin had reappeared from inside the house, where he had ordered all the oil lamps extinguished.

  “It was getting dark, lord,” my courier told me, “and the wizard had a glowing evil face. It looked like moonlight, but there was no moon. It was real magic. He went to the gate in his big cloak and he had his left hand under it, I thought he was armed and ready to strike. He was holding his big black staff in his right hand. He ordered us to open the gate for him, and he stepped outside.”

  The man did not see clearly what happened, but he heard the parley between the sorcerer and Allectus, who was still mounted on his horse. The traitor was demanding Myrddin come forward to be bound, the Druid was making an incantation. The courier glimpsed through the hinge gap that Myrddin had levelled his lignum vitae staff at the mounted man and his horse shied away.

  “The wizard ducked his head into his cloak and I thought he took a swig of something, lord,” said the courier. I nodded. I had an idea what that might be. Myrddin said no more, but took a couple of paces back, retreating into the gateway. Allectus must have nudged his horse forward, because, the courier said, still shocked at what he had seen: “The wizard, Lord Myrddin I mean, stretched his neck forward and bellowed at Allectus, and, lord, fire came out of his mouth!”

  His conjuring trick accomplished, Myrddin stepped smartly inside, and the gate was bolted against the raiders. What Allectus thought of it, I never knew, but his men were certainly awestruck. I did not tell my courier the truth, either. I knew, because Guinevia had showed me the trick, that a mouthful of a certain shellfish, crushed, gives off a luminescence. In the dark, it looks exactly like fire. A quick mouthful of piddock, crushed then exhaled hard makes you look like a dragon. Cunning Myrddin had also daubed his face with the stuff, evidently. It had bought time: the raiders would not attack the wizard’s lair in the dark, and that night the house was undisturbed.

  It was full daylight, and mid-morning at that before Allectus could convince his troops to attack, and Myrddin had another trick up his sleeve. He had spent the night hours preparing a number of leather tubes that he packed with a mix he concocted in his workshop. He also instructed the slaves and my couriers to make some crude ladders to place against the interior of the garden’s high walls so they could view the enemy outside.

  As the Druid expected, Allectus attacked from two sides simultaneously. His men ran at the walls and attempted to hoist each other over. Myrddin had handed out a number of the leather tubes to his defenders, with careful instructions and two slaves stood by with burning tapers. As the first attackers arrived, yelling, the defenders lit the leather tubes and dropped them over the wall. For the first time, those attackers met what the Qinese had used for centuries: flame-spitting, crackling, noise-making, smoking fire dragons that can terrify evil spirits, and that sent those raiders running, howling in terror.

  That was why they had been still crouched at a distance from the house, with their spooked horses even further away from the Druid’s awful presence when we arrived and captured them. So that, I thought, explains the scorch marks on the stonework.

  XLIII Heart

  Myrddin refused to return with us to Chester. “I am perfectly safe here,” he insisted. I glanced around. A couple of Parisi gardener slaves who were about to be pensioned off, several household cooks and bedmakers, and a wizard with burned-off eyebrows. Quite a military force. Myrddin skewered me with his piercing eyes. “I am perfectly safe,” he repeated. I
sighed. I might be imperator of all Britain, Lord of the Narrow Sea, a native-born jarl in his own right and commander of legions but this dusty Druid in his scorched scholar’s gown with the sheep dung around the bottom hem had no intention of being obedient to me.

  “Very well, you do seem able to look after yourself,” I conceded. “Just stay in touch with Guinevia. I’ll be needing you very soon to help deal with those damned Saxons.” And we left him in his gateway with a satisfied smirk on his lean face, but only after he had given me the secrets of making leather tubes that exploded and frightened demons. Bat guano, wood ash, charcoal and yellow brimstone, eh? Who would have found that out? I resolved to put someone to work on it, soon.

  Back in Chester, I ordered Allectus’ surviving raiders merely to be sold as slaves. They had obeyed military orders, theirs was not the crime, but I had little hope of converting them to my army and wanted rid of them. They could go and till the earth or build roads and bridges for some ruler around the Inland Sea. But for Allectus, I had other plans.

  This man had betrayed me to the Picts, to the Romans and finally to the Saxons. He had stolen from my treasury, and he had cruelly boiled Guinevia’s father to death. I also held him responsible with Maximian for the brutal deaths of my Chevron elite soldiers, captured at the fall of Londinium, who had been tortured, blinded and gutted or stoned to death simply because of their connection to me.

  I looked at the smooth-faced, wolfish traitor as he knelt, chained before me in my audience chamber. I had recounted his deeds to the crowd, now I turned to him.

  “Your actions divided my kingdom and drove my queen almost to madness,” I told him. “You deserve the sort of death I gave Chlorus. Do you remember I once told you: ‘You only have to behead a few, but the right ones?’ You, traitor, do not deserve to be beheaded. That is a death for a Roman citizen, a clean death. You took a blood oath of treachery to divide our kingdom. You deserve a traitor’s death, to be sewn in a sack with vipers and thrown into a river, but I would not pollute a British river with your filth.”