M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon

by M. K. Hume

  ‘He’ll sing castrato from now on.’ Selwyn offered his opinion with a black jest.

  ‘Only if he does it in hell. When the brute clutched at his ruined manhood, young Arthur severed his artery with that knife of his. It could have been made for him, for all it’s supposed to have belonged to the Dragon King.’

  ‘So rumour has it. The boy killed five men – even more than you, Germanus. You’ll need to keep your wits about you, old man, once the pupil starts to outstrip the master,’ Selwyn said with a laugh. His companions followed suit, all of them awed by the actions of the thirteen-year-old boy.

  ‘He’ll be a master when he reaches his full height,’ the wounded soldier decided, his voice firm with conviction. ‘I’ll happily serve under him if I should ever get the chance.’

  ‘Best of all, Fortuna loves him,’ Selwyn added. ‘He has luck, and a man can go far when luck is on his side. I’ve been told he killed his first Saxon at seven years of age.’

  When Germanus agreed that there was some truth to the rumour the soldiers were even more impressed, especially when the Friesian explained the whole story, and whispers spread that the Dragon King had come again. The tale was spread with superstitious fascination.

  ‘Let’s hope Arthur’s luck continues.’ Germanus had the final word, as befitted his position as a trusted servant. ‘If the Saxons are learning new tricks, then we’ll need all the help we can get, even from such a capricious goddess as the Roman bitch with her fucking wheel.’

  His companions agreed, and as a bloody dawn began to light the battlefield and the grim mounds of the fallen the men drifted away to carry out their various tasks. Birds came and roosted on every available tree, trusting that these men who worked so hard to rob them of the spoils of battle would overlook the odd corpse. Scavengers dined well when men went to war.

  Germanus finished his stew, his mind wholly occupied by what his charge still needed to learn. He knew that the years ahead would be difficult, but as one of his old commanders had been fond of saying, lives of peace and harmony were usually very dull.

  ‘A little tedium might be a welcome change,’ Germanus muttered to no one in particular before wandering off to find Arthur in the tents of the healers. Another red day had begun.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE ROAD TO MANHOOD

  Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

  John Milton, Areopagitica, 31

  Unaware of his burgeoning reputation, Arthur lived uneventfully in Arden, his mornings dominated by the prosaic patterns of reading and writing followed by earnest discussions of the scrolls that Father Lorcan seemed to conjure up out of nowhere. During the long afternoons, Arthur was equally occupied with a tiring regimen of exercise, weapons practice and weights that drove him to his bed in a haze of exhaustion.

  Lorcan had stumbled upon a ready accomplice in the development of Arthur’s mind, for the scrolls came from the library of Myrddion Merlinus in distant Caer Gai where they were personally selected by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. Permitted to take notes from these rare and valuable histories, Arthur was gaining an unexpected knowledge of rudimentary Roman surgery, herb lore, mapping, siege machines and Myrddion’s experiences as a physician in Rome, including symptoms and cures for the various plagues that spread throughout the known world from time to time. A normal lifespan was barely sufficient to learn a fraction of what Myrddion had accumulated during his seventy-odd years. Once studied, each scroll was swiftly returned to Caer Gai by one of Lorcan’s messengers. Another was despatched immediately, for Nimue gave unstintingly from the vast storehouse of knowledge that had become the record of her husband’s extraordinary life. With Nimue’s assistance, another Artor would learn and flourish from the ashes of Myrddion’s past.

  ‘I don’t understand all this talk of lead and defrutum,’ Arthur muttered after a puzzling morning spent poring over the great healer’s days in Rome. Arthur was already irritable, and the depth and breadth of Myrddion’s mind always made him feel inadequate. ‘Lead has been mined in the south of Britain for time beyond counting. How could such a useful metal be such a deadly poison when it’s so essential to our lives? Myrddion Merlinus must have been wrong.’

  Father Lorcan thought for a moment. ‘Is lead truly essential? When do you use it? When does Bedwyr use it? I never heard of the Roman disease, as Merlinus names it. Other than iron and brass, lead is the most common metal used in the west because it’s so soft and malleable. My only knowledge of lead comes from my years in the lands of the Middle Sea where it’s used to make water pipes. Out of vanity, women in the Frankish lands use its powdered form to whiten their complexions. Didn’t Lady Nimue describe how Queen Wenhaver used a powder of fine stone talc and lead to keep her skin fresh and pale? Perhaps that powder explains the queen’s cruelties.’ Lorcan scratched his unshaven chin reflectively, his horny nails catching on several days’ growth of beard. ‘I know that Elayne swears by her precious iron pots and the fired clay bowls that she uses for cooking in hot coals. I haven’t seen any leaden materials used in Arden at all, not that I’ve really looked. However, I give some credit to the observations of Merlinus. Cases of his Roman disease still appear in places like Rome and Ravenna, although defrutum and sapa are rarely used any more. Perhaps that’s the reason why this terrible disease has declined.’

  ‘Or perhaps most of the users have died,’ Arthur said sardonically.

  Arthur loved his lessons with Lorcan because he discovered so much about the world beyond Arden. But, more important, they gave him an opportunity to learn more about his sire through the eyes of Myrddion Merlinus, who had loved the High King and only left him to be with Nimue. Arthur read the ancient history of his father’s birth and discovered the story of another woman Merlinus had loved, Andrewina Ruadh, and how she had disappeared after delivering the infant Artor, son of Ygerne and Uther Pendragon, to the Roman villa of the Poppinidii family outside Aquae Sulis.

  For some obscure, visceral reason that he didn’t understand, this old story of devotion and duty touched Arthur more profoundly than larger tales of courage and battle. He thought of his mother’s steadfast bravery when she revealed the details of his birth to him, and of the risk she had taken of losing her son’s respect for ever. The courage of women was strange and incomprehensible to most men, so the long dead Andrewina Ruadh captured Arthur’s imagination more powerfully than tales of Gawayne’s heroism or Uther Pendragon’s desperate battles. Andrewina Ruadh had travelled a lonely road with an infant not her own, pursued and in deadly peril. Where had she gone after completing her mission? Artor’s foster-father had believed that Ruadh was close to death from a poisoned knife wound, but if she had perished her body had disappeared within the Forest Sauvage and never been discovered. Such a lonely end! Arthur tried to imagine being so far from her friends, the man she loved or the comforting touch of another human hand as she surrendered to death. Her need to protect the infant must have been greater than any thought for her own survival. Arthur began to appreciate the legends of Artor anew as he read the tales of a youth spent with his foster-brother Caius, a man of such inhuman instincts that he was eventually killed by Myrddion Merlinus, who abhorred murder.

  ‘How confusing these people are,’ he exclaimed. ‘No one in these histories is completely good or completely bad. Even the best men say one thing with their mouths and, too often, suggest the opposite through their actions.’

  ‘Yes, even the best men have weaknesses,’ Lorcan agreed. ‘A good and honest man learns what his flaws are so that his conscience can assist him to fight them for the duration of his life.’

  Arthur grimaced. ‘You make manhood sound very glum, Father Lorcan. It seems that when I’m not killing something, I’m supposed to ponder the sins that live in my secret heart. That’s crazy, isn’t it? I don’t think I want to reach manhood in the near future.’ He was only partly jesting. Sin
ce the Battle of the Hospital, he had searched for the reason for his many bad decisions and had finally come to the conclusion that his stupidity had stemmed from a hunger for fame. Above all else during that dark and terrifying night, he had wanted to prove that he was no longer a boy. The more he read about his renowned father, the more powerful grew his desire to follow in Artor’s footsteps, to be the embodiment of his sire’s civilisation. A large goal, made dangerous by pride. His ambition could easily become a dangerous weakness, Arthur thought regretfully. ‘But I’ll try not to forget Andrewina Ruadh, a courageous woman who won no fame from her sacrifice, and took her last breath alone and afraid, for a cause larger than herself. Perhaps if I tried to live like her I wouldn’t succumb to hubris, a fault which Merlinus considered the greatest sin of all.’

  ‘What are you muttering about, Arthur? Share your thoughts with me.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Father Lorcan. Just a private warning to myself to beware of pride.’

  Lorcan scratched his jaw in the careless action that Arthur had learned was habitual when the priest was thinking. ‘Hubris, you mean? It’s been the death of many great rulers, so we’ll read the Greeks tomorrow and see what the ancients have to say on the matter.’

  Arthur almost groaned aloud, but he was learning to keep his thoughts private. More dusty scrolls, he thought drily. Still, I suppose I’ll learn something.

  He had already decided that Germanus was no Targo, whom he had read of in Merlinus’s scrolls. For starters, Germanus had little or no sense of humour, while Targo had been a jester of a kind, teaching the young High King the ways of a warrior through a combination of humour and common sense. Merlinus had brought the Roman veteran to life in his writings, and Arthur could easily understand how Artor had learned to see the human condition through Targo’s wise and sardonic eyes. He himself had no Targo to remind him of how less privileged people thought and acted. Perhaps, if Rab had lived, he would have provided that necessary viewpoint to keep him conscious of his wider duty. ‘I’ll worry about that later,’ Arthur muttered to himself. ‘I’ve got enough to be getting on with.’

  That afternoon Arthur was required to lift a number of heavy weights designed to build slab-like muscles on his shoulders, upper chest and arms. Groaning, Arthur stripped to the waist to expose the still androgynous smoothness of a torso marred by only a few golden hairs, but saved from any appearance of softness by his scars, old and new. And thank the Christ for that, Germanus thought irritably, because he felt affection for the boy; he’ll have troubles enough in life without being too pretty. That old slash Arthur had received across his chest as a boy had healed cleanly, and was now only a thin white line. High on his left shoulder, an angry red knot of scar tissue was a reminder of the battle that had taken place at the hospital. Elsewhere, his body was almost hairless apart from small swaths of golden down on his arms and legs and his pubic hair, which curled in spirals like the mane of hair on his head. Since the sneak attack by the Saxons, Bedwyr had shown Arthur how to plait his side curls, but his ministrations could barely tame a tenth of the young man’s wild locks.

  Germanus had filled a wooden trunk with old armour, river rocks and scrap iron. Handles at the sides of the trunk permitted it to be lifted to chest height, but only with considerable effort. Each time he tried, Arthur could feel his muscles tense to breaking point as they took up the unnatural strain on his growing frame.

  ‘Today we try something new,’ Germanus said blandly. ‘You must lift the trunk above your head.’ In response, Arthur began to estimate the moves needed to raise the weight above his shoulders. The real problem would be changing his grip halfway through the movement. He must release his hold on the handles to lift the trunk from underneath. Germanus watched with satisfaction as his pupil worried away at the problem.

  ‘Have you worked it out yet, Arthur? If so – get on with it,’ he said.

  Arthur felt a worm of resentment grow in his skull. He gripped the trunk by the handles and snatched up the crushing weight until it was resting on his heavily muscled thighs. After several deep breaths to steady himself, he dragged the dead weight up to his chest, holding it there awkwardly by the handles while he tried to work out how to transfer his grip from the sides of the trunk to its base. His forehead beaded with sweat, and with his muscles shaking with strain, he forced his extended arms to lift the trunk higher with a jerky, swinging motion. His right hand released the handle and he tried to take the weight on his forearm as the trunk began to topple.

  He failed dismally. Arthur dropped the whole weight to the ground with a dull, sullen thud that shuddered through the wooden staves that held the trunk together.

  ‘Well, that didn’t work very well, did it?’ Germanus stated the obvious. ‘Where do you go from here?’

  ‘Back to the beginning!’ Arthur hissed between his teeth as he tried to catch his breath. Lifting that deadweight so high had drained him so that his knees shook when he tried to lock them.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I need to think.’ The young man paced back and forth across the forecourt, while several warriors standing near the palisade called out helpful suggestions. Arthur would have wished them to the devil because they broke his concentration, but he knew that they meant well and were genuinely interested to see how he would approach such a seemingly senseless task.

  Before he had fully thought out his next move, Arthur gripped the trunk at the base on each side. He had tried the handles, and knew he lacked the strength to transfer his grip from them to the bottom of the trunk. Now . . . did he have the strength to lift the trunk the hard way?

  As he grappled with the awkward manoeuvre he was sure that he would never keep his grip on the smooth wooden planks, but he refused to surrender to a few pieces of scrap metal and wood. Slowly, the trunk rose, and his back bent like a bow. Now his forearms felt like lead and his fingers clawed at the sides of the trunk. But the dead weight rose, although logic reasoned that he lacked the muscle to lift it. One foot. Two feet. Just a little more and he could rest with the weight of the trunk on his thighs and his slightly bent knees.

  Panting and running with sweat, Arthur concentrated on the task before him. Inch by painful inch. Once the trunk was balanced on his thighs and the weight removed from his shoulders and lower vertebrae, he flexed his fingers and took a new grip with most of each hand safely below the trunk’s base.

  Now! Lift! he screamed at his traitorous brain. Lift the trunk up to your waist. You can rest it on your chest soon. Lift it, you son of a whore!

  The trunk rose as Arthur took the full, crushing weight on his arms and shoulders. Fearing a cramp, he didn’t dare to hurry, his eyes monitoring the slow rise of the trunk before him. I’ll be damned, he thought irrelevantly, as his body and his will strove against the weight of scrap iron and stone.

  Then the trunk was resting across his upper chest, although Arthur had to bend backward to accommodate the weight, setting his lower back to screaming at the sudden abuse. But now both hands were placed securely under the trunk.

  Now! Before I lose my nerve!

  The trunk rose above Arthur’s head and he locked his elbows to hold it firmly in place. He had succeeded in the challenge. Bellowing in triumph, he stepped back and allowed the whole, meaningless collection of objects to fall to the ground where the wooden trunk shattered and spilled scrap iron and stone all over the courtyard.

  ‘Good work, young Arthur. I didn’t think you could do it. Now, go to the bathhouse and use hot cloths from the cauldron to wash your shoulders, hands and back. You’re bleeding, boy.’

  ‘Am I?’ Arthur said blankly.

  Then he realised that his nose had begun to gush, and Germanus felt a twinge of alarm. He had deliberately doubled the weight in the trunk to teach Arthur that some things couldn’t be achieved. Unfortunately, the lad’s fixity of purpose had lifted a weight that should have been impossible for a stripling of his age. Showing his student how to use his thumb and forefinger to pinch off the
blood vessels in his nose, Germanus shepherded him off to the bathhouse.

  The simple wooden hut was still thick with steam from an earlier group of bathers, but Germanus forced Arthur to sit on a wooden stool and douse himself with dippers of warm water while Germanus used hot cloths to release the strain in his pupil’s back, shoulders and arms. Once the muscles began to relax, Germanus splashed oil onto his palms to massage the boy’s shoulders and the two long ridges that ran parallel on either side of his spine. Arthur groaned under his master’s ministrations, but Germanus was too nervous to check whether his pupil moaned in pain or pleasure. Once the muscles were at rest and he had satisfied himself that Arthur had taken no lasting hurt from his exertions, he slapped the young man on the back and ordered him to dress and then to rest for the remainder of the afternoon.

  When Arthur was inclined to argue, Germanus explained. ‘I made a serious error of judgement, Arthur, one that could have hurt you badly. You’re as healthy as the best of your father’s hounds – or his warhorse – so I should have explained that there was no shame in failing to lift that trunk, because I’d put more weight in it than usual. I intended you to discover that we all fail sometimes, in spite of our best efforts. But you succeeded, and in doing so you spoiled my lesson.’ Germanus smiled. ‘Damn me, boy, your stubbornness will be the death of you one day. You just hate to give in, don’t you? Never mind – don’t look so serious. It’s a special talent you have, rather than a fault. I didn’t recognise it in you, so the blame would have been mine if you had hurt yourself.’