He followed the flight of the bird down the reedy riverbank, out into the valley where the river widened, becoming flat pools of slow-moving brackish water with lily pads floating languidly on the surface. He could see little of the local landmarks but he knew that the hill of Ogg lay across the river, with its enclosure for cattle and outlying settlements of mean huts, and that above the steep north-eastern lip of the valley, lay the Hallows of the Kings and Queens—the great cemeteries of Khor Ghor, where long barrows, their wooden mortuary huts crumbled and their owners’ bones in disarray, jostled against later round barrows, the graves of mighty individuals who bore gold and shale and jet and warrior’s weapons for their journey across the Great Plain. Next to them stood the women’s tumuli, their small central tumps holding skeletons of high-status females whose bony claws clutched items for use in the After-Life: amber and faience beads, incense cups and awls, pendants shaped like the halberds of their men.
Mordraed did not want to go too near these mounds, nor catch sight of Khor Ghor in the far distance, its stones floating like ghostly heads in the night. He had no wish to linger with the dead like his mother and Amhar… Gal’havad… He mouthed the youth’s new name with petty mockery, still hating that the boy at last had man’s status in the tribe.
Up ahead he saw the river flare even wider, almost becoming a small, glassy lake, and in the most still, sluggish part of its swell, a thatched hut that teetered on long stilts that raised it above the water level. The cult-house of the Ladies of the Lake… his aunt Mhor-gan, the one they called Khorreg, the elf-woman, and her mistress, the one-eyed hag called Nin-Aeifa, who was said to have guided his accursed father to the sword Caladvolc. He would not be knocking on their door at this late hour!
Retreating from the riverbank and the spindly-legged house, Mordraed hurried in an uphill direction, following an indistinct track through berry bushes and gorse. Oaks and hazel trees towered over him, branches rustling in the wind, and holly hedges bled red berries. Thorns tore at his clothes and hair. He started peering right and left… he knew that there was a barrow-hill of great age and veneration nearby, where a great prophet of the times of King Bolgos rested, separate in death from others as he has been separate in life due to his great wisdom.
He spied the hill first—solitary and grass grown, its deep ditch full of offerings deposited by the local people of the valley. And then… she was there, crouched on the tomb’s summit like a marker-stone—Morigau, sister of Ardhu, her hair down, flowing free in black waves to her waist, her cloak of feathers billowing around her, its tattiness hidden by the darkness of the night.
“Mother.” He stepped towards her. He did not really know if he felt happy or not to see her.
“My boy!” She sprang down from that hill of the ancient dead and flung her arms around his narrow waist, kissing his face and mouth in a way he thought unseemly. Uncomfortable, he pushed her back an arm’s length and frowned.
“Are you not glad to see me?” she said. “It has been such a long time. You have been remiss. I thought you would have sought me out at least once since entering my brother’s hall.”
“I would not have my head on a spike or be watched more closely than I already am in Kham-El-Ard.”
“Does my brother mistreat you?”
“No, he does not. Yet I am well aware of my position in his domain. If I stepped out of line, I would be crushed like an earthworm under Ardhu Pendraec’s heel.”
“And what of your brothers? I have seen Ga’haris, but not the other two.”
“They are fine, happy and well fed.” Mordraed spoke with slight maliciousness. “Much more so than on Ynys Yrch. Agravaen loves the Pendraec, despite all the tales you told of his evils; he follows him like a loyal hound and is sure he will be an esteemed warrior in his warband some day. He never speaks of you.”
Morigau’s black eyes sparkled. “He is a useless boy, worse than Loth ever was… arrow fodder as I said before. But he may prove useful to us yet, as he is so stupid, so gullible.”
“Ardhu’s son is friend to me.” Mordraed decided he would tell Morigau about Gal’havad… but he would keep silent about his failure to slay the young prince within the stones. “That may also prove useful.”
Morigau nodded. “I had heard this rumour, and saw the way he greeted you in Kham-El-Ard. Pah, a weak, effeminate-looking boy not fit to rule the West. Fit only to feed the dark earth. Not like you, my Mordraed, my Dark Moon.”
“There is more,” continued Mordraed. “A discovery much more important to our cause. But I would not speak of it here; it is cold and the night is deepening, and gods know who or what might be lurking in the brush… maybe even those two raddled hags from the Lake.”
“You are right.” She ran down the barrow’s slope, lissom as a girl, and beckoned for him to follow her. “We need to talk where unfriendly ears cannot hear nor eyes see… I also have a gift waiting for you, my son… an important gift to aid you on your road to greatness. I chose it with you alone in mind—Ga’haris should have spoken of it, but pah… the boy is probably as addled as Agravaen! I risked Ardhu’s wrath and eluded the mean eyes of my sister Mhor-gan to fare beyond and get it for you. Come and see… but do not be ashamed for me, though I live in a hovel and not the stately abode I am due. Curse my brother and his meanness for keeping me in such a state!”
They walked together down the night-furled valley, Morigau clinging to her son’s arm as if he were a lover. She could not stop touching him, his arm, his shoulder; he held his head high and ignored her. Soon a ramshackle hut, small and poorly constructed, came into view, its walls painted with magic symbols to frighten off both spirits and passing men. A pig snorted in a pen, and came snuffling up to the fence as Morigau approached. The animal was a big fat sow, horrid and slug-like, its skin bone-white and dotted with sores. “She is an oracular pig,” Morigau explained, poking at the creature with a stick until it squealed and bit at the wood. “I use her in hopes that she will soon tell me of the fall of my brother.”
Mordraed entered the hut, bending under the low doorframe. The inside of the hovel smelt foul; rot, sweat and ordure mingled to form a heady stew. La’morak and Ack-olon, Morigau’s guards and lovers, were squatting in the corner, so grimy and dishevelled they looked as if they had been rolling in the pen with the oracular pig. A cheerless fire of green wood that spat and hissed burned on a central hearth, and a small, faceless stone idol that Morigau must have brought from Ynys Yrch crouched on a plinth before it. Some wild beast had been killed and blood and tangled innards lay reeking at the foot of the plinth.
Morigau kicked Ack-olon aside and threw down a skin for Mordraed to sit on. She then poured him a drink of honey-mead in a crudely fired beaker. “I stole the honey from Mhor-gan’s own beehives. She never knew,” she said with satisfaction.
Mordraed tipped back the mead—thank the spirits; at least it was not foul. He was disgusted by the squalor around him, and, despite himself, wished he was back at Kham-El-Ard where the women frequently brushed out the hall with branches and threw dry reeds on the ground. The sullen glowers of Ack-olon and La’morak annoyed him too; it was plain to see they hated him being there. The thoughts of his mother coupling in that sty with the two of them, dirt-caked and grunting, made the gorge rise in his throat.
He fingered the beaker Morigau had given him, fingernail tracing the impressions of wheat around the rim. “Do you want to know what I have found while dwelling with my fa… Ardhu?” he asked.
“Of course,” said Morigau. “Tell me any news that might help our cause!”
“My eyes are very keen,” he said at length. “and, while in Ardhu’s hall, I have seen something no one else has noticed. Or if they have, they have put the thought from their minds and pretended it was other than it was.”
“Oh?” Morigau poured a beaker of mead for herself—it was a man’s drink, but she was a priestess and normal rules did not apply to her. “And what might that be? I am intrigued, my son.”
“Aye.” She leaned forward, mouth shining with the thick, sweet mead. Lips too full, too lush, parted over her straight white teeth. “What of him? I have heard that despite his status he takes no woman, that he is loyal only to Ardhu’s household only.” She laughed. “Are you going to tell me he shares my brother’s bed as well… ah, my dear, it would not be the first time a king’s shield-brother was something more to him besides!”
Mordraed shook his head fiercely. “No! It is nothing like that! The bronze man… he beds the Queen, the White Woman! And Ardhu Pendraec is too convinced of An’kelet’s friendship and the honour of his pasty whore to even notice what is going on within his own dun!”
Morigau’s mouth dropped open in surprise and then she started to laugh. Clutching the edge of her cloak in her hands, she strutted around the flickering fire in a victory dance. Ack-olon and La’morak glanced at each other before bursting into laughter themselves.
Morigau ceased her dance and knelt back down beside her son. “What welcome news! If there is one thing that can destroy a man, this is it. His woman a wanton slut… and bedding his closest companion, no less. And Ardhu a king, whose household should be above reproach! How all men in Prydn will laugh at his shame! So tell me, Mordraed, what have you seen, what proof of this treachery have you to show Ardhu?”
Mordraed shifted uncomfortably, unnerved by her hot eyes, her hot breath burning against his neck. “None as yet. I know I have read the signs clearly, though… I am no fool. But as you might imagine, if I were to leap up and denounce them both before the warriors, hatred and anger would be directed at me before them and doubts cast upon my word… because I am your son.”
Morigau slapped her hands against the dirty, threadbare dress straining over her thin thighs. “Aye… aye, you are right. I would not have you put at risk by denouncing them openly… but, let me think… what about your brother Agravaen? You say he has grown loyal to my brother. Others must see his devotion. If you were to… guide him… let him discover the lovers… well, we all know what he is like, he cannot keep his big mouth shut, and he would doubtless roar the place down in dismay if he is as loyal as you imply.”
Mordraed rubbed his chin. “I could probably arrange such a thing. Agravaen is none too clever and would never wonder if I were suddenly to befriend him.”
“It is set then,” said Morigau. “Oh, how I wish I could be in Kham-El-Ard to see Ardhu’s kingdom crumble, his family in ruins… just as my inheritance, my family was ruined by his father, the usurper U’thyr Pendraec!”
She rocked on her heels, face scowling and ugly as she remembered her past… being tossed from her mother’s hut when her new man moved in, the beatings when she, a difficult child who heard black barrow-voices in her head, screamed and howled and bit both her foster-dam and her own mother.
Mordraed shivered; she looked like some kind of fell spirit, a death-wailer or the river-watcher who beat men’s bloody death-shrouds on rocks in streams, as she teetered back and forth on her grimy, heels. Suddenly she shook her head, and the fierce glare of total hatred vanished from her eyes. “Your news brings another question to my mind,” she said in a heavy, triumphant voice. “If the Ar-moran has been bedding the Queen for a long time… who is to say if the boy men call Prince is in fact Ardhu’s get? He does not look like our family. If that doubt could be sewn, and the troublesome bastard removed one way or another… a space would open for the rightful heir. You, my son, Mordraed.”
Mordraed grunted. He had not even thought of such a thing, which surprised him, for his mind often moved in such directions, even as Morigau’s. Secretly he thought his mother was wrong, red hair popped up unexpectedly in many families, but putting the seeds of doubt in men’s minds would do no harm.
Morigau continued, “Be that as it may, I had another reason to call you here—not just to see your mother who wishes you only the greatest fame and honour, who worships you as she could no other man.” She sidled up to him. “The gift… the gift I spoke of. I am sure you will be pleased. I chose it just for you and risked much to get it… Come with me…”
She guided him round the back of the hut, next to the pig’s reeking sty, where a small lean-to of woven branches drooped against the hut’s outer wall. Mordraed frowned; what on earth could she be about to show him?
Morigau bent over, staring into the shadowed lean-to. “There you go, Mordraed, your gift… Khyloq, my present to you… your bride!”
“What?” Mordraed pushed Morigau roughly aside. Under the branches, huddled in the corner and shivering uncontrollably, was a girl. Long auburn hair a shade darker than Amhar’s fell in sodden, dirty tangles over her torn and sodden tunic. Her ankles and wrists were bound, and the twine on her ankles tied to the supporting posts of the lean-to, which would have come crashing down on her if she struggled for freedom.
“Who is she?” he hissed, and when Morigau just laughed, he grabbed his mother’s shoulder and shook her violently, until her head snapped back. “Speak, woman! What is this about?”
“She is Khyloq neq Khunedda, daughter of a powerful chief of the middle-lands. A good lineage, my mother’s mother’s sister was married into the clan, and for the most part the men descended from the old Tin-Lords. I stole her.”
“Stole her?” Mordraed stared at Morigau, incredulous.
She waved her hand as if he was silly and childish for being so shocked. “Stole. Abducted… no matter. Her father would not countenance a match since we lost Ynys Yrch, so La’morak, Ack-olon and I took her by night, in the old way. She will make a good wife to you I am sure. She was not much trouble, not too wilful on the road here. Only bit Ack-olon once.”
Mordraed exploded. “How dare you do this evil thing? A match and I am the last to know! Have I no say?”
Her black eyes glittered and suddenly she was not just Morigau, but the death-crone, the queen of the Dark Moon, ruling over him, who was only the Moon’s servant. “No, you do not. Never forget, my son, that without me to guide you, you will be just another discarded chief’s bastard, doomed to watch the less worthy claim things that should be yours.”
Mordraed was almost incandescent with rage but managed to control himself. “And what of the White Woman? Did you not say that I must have her as my own, that she is Sovereignty and will confer rulership of the Land onto me? And if you insist on lumbering me with this girl—I cannot take her back to Kham-El-Ard; I am not even in the King’s warband as yet and have no wealth to keep a woman!”
“Khyloq will remain with me,” replied Morigau. “She will stay a secret until you are well settled on Kham-El-Ard with Ardhu’s golden breastplate on your tunic and the Lightning Mace in your hand. You will marry Fynavir… but once the marriage is consummated Khyloq can be brought forward, as second wife. No one will object; a king can have all the wives he pleases. It is only Ardhu’s foolishness that keeps him from taking another besides his white bitch. You will need an heir and quickly; you need to establish yourself before other chiefs decide they have right to the domains of the West. Fynavir will not give you sons; I have heard that the birth of her brat tore her womb and that is why she has been barren ever since. Once you have lain with her and all know that you have ploughed that sacred earth, you can do what you like…” She grinned unpleasantly, rubbing her chin. “If you truly despise her… well, that can be dealt with in time… it would be most unfortunate if Fynavir died soon after you assumed the position of Stone Lord, but she is growing old, after all… The problem may even be dealt with for you; once Ardhu knows that she lies on her back for An’kelet of Ar-morah he may get the guts of a proper man and put her to death!”
“But then I could not claim her… and right of rule through her.”
“No.” she agreed. “But his actions would make him accursed, although in the right. Either way, yo
u win, my Mordraed.”
“You are a creature of much spite,” Mordraed muttered, “But I do not doubt you have my interests at heart…”
“I do. And since I am the one of all our clan who has both intellect and courage,” she said coldly,” I will be coming to Kham-El-Ard as your advisor when my brother is deposed. And replacing that old fool, the Merlin as priest. I will rip his stringy guts out and divine from them in the very heart of Khor Ghor! Now, no more talk… look at the girl… what do you think? Does she stir you?”
She grabbed the girl’s arm and yanked her forward so that Mordraed could see her more clearly. Khyloq whimpered and Morigau struck her, and then ripped her tattered, sodden robe away. She shoved her forward, pulling back her hair and exposing her white body. “Do you like her?” she asked. “So pretty at that age, before the sagging that comes from bearing too many brats.”
“Mother, stop that!” Mordraed snarled and pushed Morigau out of the way. Taking off his cloak he tossed it to the soaked, shivering girl, whose tears were now mingling with the rain. “If you are determined this thing must be done, then she will be considered one of our clan and it would be dishonourable to abuse her! In fact, if she is to be mine, then I say to you… leave her be. She can contribute to the chores of the household—by the Ancestors, someone needs to clean this shite-hole up—but she will not be beaten or abused, not by you and not by those two miserable miscreants squatting inside your hut. If I hear otherwise, you will answer to me.”
Morigau suddenly bowed her head. “I hear you, son. My boy is grown—he speaks like a man and a king now.”
“I will take the girl inside,” Mordraed continued, his voice still sharp. “What were you thinking of, tying her up outside like a goat or a dog? She might have died of cold, and a charge of murder would be raised against you, not just abduction!”
He guided Khyloq into the hut and sat her down beside the fire. Looking at her in the flicker of the flames, he found her quite comely—a heart-shaped face, light green-amber eyes, and a lithe wiry body with long legs. Reaching out, he touched her breast. She gave a little gasp and tried to draw away. He drew her closer “No.” He shook his head. “You are mine. You heard my mother Morigau. That is why you were taken. For me. We are of noble house; do not be fooled by this vile shack. One day you may not live in such squalor but in a chieftain’s hut with gold and amber at your throat. I do not take you to dishonour you and then discard you.”
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 11
