by Chris Page
As the three started to scream in terror, the four monks all dropped to their knees and began to pray and the villagers all began to shout at once.
Twilight waved his hand up for silence and then nodded at Tara. She stood on the rock previously occupied by the abbot.
‘You all know who my mother and I are.’ She indicated Katre. ‘And this is Twilight, the veneficus of Wessex. He is a wizard and man of great magic and is also my teacher.’
She pointed at Patrick and Nell Delaney.
‘These two are innocent.’
She pointed at the abbot and her father and grandmother.
‘They are not. Other than what we will do here today, there will not be any further castings into the Devil’s Pit. If there is, I will come back and do the same to all of you.’
The three suspended and the villagers immediately cottoned on to her meaning, and all began to babble at once. Her grandmother screamed at Katre. ‘Why are you letting her do this?’ ‘Because,’ Katre said wearily to her mother, ‘as much as I hate to say this about my own mother, you are an evil, thieving, scheming woman who will continue to kill others for your own benefit.’ ‘Katre, if you do this, you will not only kill your own mother, and husband and father to that little red-haired witch, you will also kill your own father!’
She pointed at the abbot, who was still babbling in complete terror. Katre looked stunned. ‘H . . . he is my father? But you always said my real father died before I was born!’
‘Well, I lied,’ cackled her mother. ‘I used to clean and cook at the monastery. You never had any other father, this man was it!’ Katre stepped back and clamped her lips shut. Tara looked at Twilight. Your call, he said directly to her mind. But remember this. Evil is eternal and if it’s not dispatched will always come back another day to continue with its hideous practices. Thank you, she replied. I know what to do now.
Chapter 3
‘When their own vaunted religions cannot provide an answer, the faithful always turn to magic. Once we have provided that answer they scuttle back to the failed deity and carry on as if nothing happened.’
Following Guthrum’s surrender at Uffington, one of the conditions imposed by King Alfred was that the Viking jarl and his chieftains should convert to Christianity through baptism and strict adherence to its beliefs and way of life. Refusal meant death or forced return to their lowlander territories, which, based on the complete eradication of all their family honour and lands due to the failure of the invasion, would be worse than death. Also implicit within the conditions was integration within the Wessex and now English way of life. Accepting the inevitable that Viking were to be an ever-present threat, Alfred’s premise was to integrate and share rather than to continuously fight. As with most things Alfred, it was well-intentioned and humane but ultimately fruitless. Although paying lip service to the Christian conversion and power-sharing, the Viking saw it as a coat to be put on when it suited them and discarded when it didn’t, and the strict adherence to this religion didn’t last for long, especially with Olaf Tryggvason chomping at the bit with his warrior aggression alongside Guthrum. Tryggvason’s loyalty to the Norse deities was sacrosanct; this Nazarene god who rode upon donkeys would never supplant the warrior gods of Wotan, Tyr, Thor, Aegir, and Hel in his Viking heart. In the meantime the lowlanders spent the requisite amount of time on their knees on the cold, gray flagstone floors of Alfred’s churches until matters changed.
Subsequent Viking unrest followed by uprisings ultimately led to the division of England into two, with Alfred ruling the south and the Viking controlling the north under what became known as the Danelaw. Due to her great age, Freyja, the old hag and Viking venefica, only had a few years left before her one hundred years were up. Twilight saw occasional evidence of her enchantments in some of the continual raiding patterns of the restless Viking, but as Guthrum faded and his old warriors began to integrate and marry into the local population, Freyja’s influence died away. And whilst kings and rulers could perhaps forgive each other in the name of progress and marry into one another’s families to preserve sovereignty and strength, venefici could never forgive. It was always in the back of Twilight’s mind to finally rid this turning earth of Freyja’s evil presence, no matter how short the period before the age of one hundred years claimed her. In the event, the venefical age factor did it for him, and no more was heard of her. Since he had killed her twins and successors, from the time of her death the Viking were thereafter without a veneficus.
Peace and alliances negotiated by Alfred were always short-lived and soon collapsed under the ambitions of other warlords. Under various other leaders the Viking continued to raid all around the coast of Britain, in particular the northeast, and internal tribes such as the Welsh monarchs and the Mercian kings continued to agitate for expansion. Busy with these wars and the building of a navy, together with the establishment of an enforced Christianity through his ‘law-codes,’ King Alfred and Twilight gradually grew apart. Occasionally the king would call upon the Wessex veneficus for advice or help, but his rule was beginning to encompass the greater fiefdom of England, an area Twilight had not yet accepted as his responsibility.
Upon his death, King Alfred was succeeded by his son Edward, who built a huge mausoleum in Winchester to house his father’s tomb. In quick succession three more kings came and went - Edmund, Canute the Dane, and another Edward. By the time Tara arrived to train with Twilight, yet another Edward had arrived on the throne of England.
The new king was Edward the Confessor, another strict Christian, and he and Twilight had not met.
With the unrest and internal struggle for power that engulfed his reign, it was only a matter of time.
Edward the Confessor created a permanent base for the English monarchy on the banks of the Thames at Westminster, outside London. When he became king, the most powerful Anglo-Saxon in England was Earl Godwine. In order to cement Godwine’s loyalty, Edward married his daughter, Ealdgyth. The earl hoped Ealdgyth would soon have children with Edward, particularly a son and heir. Edward, however, had taken a vow of celibacy, and it soon became clear that, outside congress with his mistress, another Ealdgyth (Swanneshals - Swan-neck), he was sticking to it.
Earl Godwine’s sons had, through their father’s patronage, also become powerful figures in England. Swein was Earl of Hereford, Gloucester, and Oxford - parts of the old Wessex and therefore under Twilight’s protection - Harold held the earldom of East Anglia, and Beorn was Earl of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Swein, the elder of Godwine’s sons, was just about the most repellent, depraved abomination of a man that had ever walked this turning earth. Coupled with his family’s power and the high seat of his earldom, he manifested breathtaking degrees of psychopathic carnality and viciousness that inevitably put him on a collision course with Twilight.
And, of course, his new tyro, the little redheaded, green-eyed Tara.
Edward the Confessor appointed Robert of Jumieges as Archbishop of Canterbury, by now the highest Christian post in England. Jumieges was an abbot from Normandy who had learned his Christianity in Rome. He sent an emissary to see Twilight in Avebury, asking for an urgent meeting.
‘I have never been to Canterbury before,’ said Twilight, strolling toward the towering cathedral where the archbishop lived. ‘Quite an impressive building, eh, little one?’
Tara cast her green eyes around the open space in front of the cathedral, which was filled with monks in black and brown habits busily going about their religious business.
‘If you like this sort of thing,’ she replied, intimating that after her own experiences with the abbot and monks of Skellighaven she most definitely didn’t like this sort of thing. For this little trip they had left Katre at the Avebury compound. She had been upset at the events of Skellighaven and decided that such episodes did not suit her.
As Twilight and Tara approached the cathedral entrance, two large guards with long, sharp-looking pikes and wearing metal helm
ets and armor barred their way.
‘What is your business here?’ growled one of the men menacingly as they crossed their pikes to prevent entry.
‘We have been summoned by the archbishop.’ The old astounder smiled.
‘What for?’ growled the other.
Shall I use the old Merlin trick and turn them into goats? Tara spoke directly to his mind.
Wait a moment. It may only be necessary with one of them.
‘We are wizards,’ Twilight answered softly, the smile still on his face.
‘Get away with you before I run you through with this,’ one of the men shouted angrily, moving toward them with his pike pointed at Twilight’s stomach. ‘The archbishop doesn’t have anything to do with your kind.’
Go ahead.
Suddenly the long pike dropped harmlessly to the floor, and a small pink pig stood where the man moving toward them had been. With trembling legs it squealed plaintively at them.
Twilight turned his smile on the other guard, who was gaping in stupefaction at the sudden transformation of his companion.
‘Now, perhaps you would be so kind as to inform the archbishop that Twilight, the veneficus of Wessex, and his tyro venefica Tara are here to see him as requested.’
Within minutes a young man rushed toward them pulling on a cassock. Seeing the squealing pig he stopped in his tracks.
‘Mister Twilight?’ he called, hesitantly inching toward them. Receiving a smile and a nod, his face broke into a broad beam of welcome and relief.
‘I am Brother Thomas, novice monk and assistant to the archbishop. He awaits your presence and thanks you for coming. This way please.’
As he turned to lead them, Tara nodded at the pig, which instantly turned back into the guard who found himself sitting on the floor. She smiled sweetly at Brother Thomas, who, mouth agape, made a sign of the cross and began to hurry across the cobblestones with frequent glances behind him. For devilment Tara pointed her finger at him, and he yelped and jumped into the air thinking he, too, was about to become a pig.
She giggled.
Behave yourself, Twilight said but could not keep the smile from his face.
A tall man in a black robe with a heavy gold chain and a large golden cross around his neck stood by the entrance to the cathedral. On his head he wore a large black flat hat made out of some kind of felt, which was slanted over one ear. Clear blue eyes twinkled in a lined and weather-beaten face.
‘I have heard of people being turned into goats and pigs but always believed it to be myth,’ he said in heavily accented English, holding both arms out to grasp Twilight by the elbows. ‘You are indeed most welcome, sir, and I apologize for the reception you were given by my guards. One has so many enemies, and I have to be protected at all times.’
His gaze held Twilight’s black orbs for as long as he could; then he dropped his eyes down to Tara.
‘And you, young lady, are, I believe, the tyro venefica to this great and wonderful man, are you not?’
‘And pig turner,’ Tara said impishly. ‘My name is Tara.’
The archbishop smiled down at her. ‘Asses would be more appropriate sometimes, Tara, believe you me. Come this way, there is something I wish to discuss with you both.’
When they were settled in his rooms, Archbishop Jumieges began his story.
‘I was appointed by King Edward in order to bring the church’s view and teachings to this land and to help restore some of the balance and authority to the crown where it belongs.’ He held his hand up. ‘Before you say anything, I am aware of your stance with regard to religion, all religion. When I was a young novice and before I went to Rome for further study, I spent a brief period of time studying with a fine monk with whom I believe you are acquainted.’
Twilight raised an eyebrow but he already knew the name that was coming.
‘Brother Bede at the monastery on Lindisfarne. He told me many things about you and the heroic deeds you performed with King Alfred against the Viking invaders. It was Bede who told me about your anti-religious stance.’
The enchanter nodded.
Jumieges gathered his thoughts for a moment before pressing on.
‘There is a powerful Anglo-Saxon earl in England called Godwine. He has three sons called Swein, Harold, and Beorn, all of whom have been appointed earls because of their father’s patronage. The one I am concerned with here is Swein, who is a particularly nasty individual who thinks that he can take whatever he wants. In this case Edgiva, the Abbess of Leominster.’
Twilight nodded again. He was beginning to see where this was going.
‘Swein, who glorifies in the title of the Earl of Herefordshire, Gloucester, and Oxford, has kidnapped the abbess from Leominster Abbey and is holding her prisoner in his castle at Hereford. He is evidently captivated by her and refuses to let her go such that I have heard many rumours of, shall we say, improper behaviour by Swein with Edgiva. He also has many men under arms and the castle is strongly defended. The king will deal with the Godwines in due course and it won’t be merciful, but the time is not right to provoke all-out war with them across the land by rescuing the abbess . . .’
‘So he wants us to do it for him,’ said Tara bluntly.
‘He does and, just as importantly, so do I. Edgiva is a high-ranking and highly regarded abbess in the Christian Church of which I am head. It does not become us to ignore that fact. If we do ignore it, other abbesses and nuns will be viewed as easy game and receive the same treatment.’
‘Are you sure the abbess wants to be rescued?’ Twilight asked.
‘Edgiva managed to smuggle out a message. She is desperate to be away from that evil man.’
He paused and looked closely at Twilight.
‘I beg of you to rescue Edgiva for one reason and one reason only. That reason has nothing to do with religion, power, or sovereign succession politics. Swein does not, as far as I can tell, present a threat to Wessex or the Celtic population . . .’
‘What is the reason then?’ Tara said impatiently.
The archbishop opened his mouth to answer her.
‘Humanity, eh, monk,’ said Twilight softly. ‘You’re about to appeal to our sense of humanity. A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi alia tendanda via est. Which for you, my little redheaded tyro, translates to ‘a precipice before me and wolves behind me’ - or better - ’when you’re between a rock and a hard place another way must be found.’ The venefical command of the enchantments is the last redoubt of those who have exhausted every other means of salvation. When their own vaunted religions cannot provide the answers, the faithful always turn to magic. Interestingly enough, once we have provided the answer you’ll scuttle back to your previously failed deity and carry on as if nothing has happened . . . until the next time. As an exercise in the fickle futility of some faiths it cannot be beaten, yet humankind cannot find the mechanisms to break with it and will continue to force it down the throats of nonbelievers as the Only Way!’
Robert of Jumieges nodded and looked down at his feet.
‘You’re right of course. Auribus teneo lupum, I have one of those wolves by the ears. It’s about to bite my head off and there’s absolutely nothing my god can or will do about it. He simply doesn’t listen or respond to certain types of human suffering. If the abbess Edgiva is to be rescued, I have no recourse other than to throw myself upon your mercy, appeal to your humanity. Will you help me?’
‘Archbishop,’ replied Twilight softly. ‘Are you familiar with any of the writings of Homer, the great Greek poet?’
‘No.’
‘In his work called The Odyssey, the story of a great and tortuous journey undertaken by a warrior called Odysseus, a witch called Circe turns his shipmates into pigs as part of her attempt to seduce him. Odysseus resists these attempts at seduction until the witch turns them back into men.’
Jumieges thought about this for a moment.
‘As you did with my guard. But the seduction is incomplete, you turned him back into a
man again without asking me for anything in return.’
‘Never forget the power of the pig, Archbishop. We may come again to reclaim an injustice. Then it will be your turn to be a four-legged squealer . . . and we just might not reverse it.’
Robert of Jumieges had nightmares about that for months.
‘I knew,’ said Tara as they floated high over Hereford Castle, the strongly defended bastion of Swein’s cruel earldom, ‘that you wouldn’t be able to resist that archbishop’s heartfelt plea for help despite that gruff, silent, man-of-magic-but-not-easy-to convince bit you were giving him. Despite your avowed dislike of religious leaders and all that stuff about ‘the fickle futility of some faiths’ and turning him into a pig, he had you eating out of his hand.’
Twilight laughed loudly.
‘He sure did, my little Irish firebrand. I didn’t know which way to turn. Had me trussed up like a chicken ready for the pot. Anyhow, what self-respecting male veneficus worth his salt is going to turn down the chance to save a damsel in distress, eh?’
‘Especially one imprisoned in a castle by a wicked earl.’ Tara laughed with him.
‘Another reason could have something to do with you. In the year or so you have been with me, have we rescued any damsels in distress from anywhere?’
‘None whatsoever,’ Tara said. ‘I have been deprived of such events in my training.’
Twilight pointed downward, his mien turning serious. The drawbridge of Hereford Castle was slowly winding downward. As soon as it reached ground level over the moat surrounding the castle, the pointed steel bars rose and at least a hundred fully armed men clattered over it. At their head rode a tall, powerfully built man in a full suit of chain mail. Bare-headed with a mane of long, flowing blond hair and a double-handed sword bouncing around on his thigh, the man led his men rapidly through the settlement of Hereford, callously scattering people, chickens, pigs, and cattle in all directions.
