Behind him, he could hear Morigau chanting, speaking words of the marriage rite that would bring fertility to the union and bind them together before the Ancestors. She shuffled round the pair, hopping on one foot in the traditional spell-caster's position hurling fragrant herbs into the embers then dousing youth and maiden with sprinklings of oils and powders. She had stripped off her deerskin tunic and wore just a necklace made of spiky bones carved into phallic shapes. Red ochre signs were drawn around her breasts and above the join of her thighs. She danced and writhed, waving a rattle - the noise of which would frighten off any malign spirits who might seek to steal the bride’s fertility or the groom’s potency.
Kneeling beside the couple, she took a lump of ochre and chalked signs on Khyloq’s torso to match her own. Khyloq protested, but feebly; Morigau was wiry and strong. Watching her straddle the girl, Mordraed began to feel the first surges of real desire, the need to touch and explore that white flesh, to quench the fire of his loins in the cave between her legs. He ripped at the ties on his deerskin trousers as Morigau shoved Khyloq’s thighs apart with her knee. Khyloq cried out, but now Mordraed stifled her cry with his mouth, pressing his tongue in between her teeth.
Morigau backed away from Khyloq and took her son’s hand, guiding it between the girl’s legs. “She will welcome you. The gate will be open. Let your union be fruitful and blessed.”
Mordraed straddled Khyloq, pressing her down into the fur on the floor. She struggled, pushing up against him but the touch of her skin made him even more excited. Suddenly he noticed his mother’s men staring, their faces looming over the mean fire-pit, distorted with lust and eagerness. He pulled his cloak over his back, hiding himself and the lying girl below him. “At least have the decency to turn your ugly faces away!” he ordered “And if you ever look at my wife with eyes that that again, I will blind you with my dagger and feed your eyeballs to the crows!”
Morigau laughed. “I will attend to the needs of my men. They will soon forget pretty new flesh.” She wrapped a strand of La’morak’s lank hair around her hand and yanked him towards her.
Mordraed turned back to Khyloq, propping himself up on his arms to look down at her. She had ceased to resist and stared back at him with an expression that blended defiance, resignation, and something else, too, something he’d seen in other women’s faces when they looked at him. Captive or no, she was not blind to his charms. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, “as long as you do not bite me or scratch me… much.”
“I won’t then,” she whispered. “Unless you ask me to.”
He laughed and dived on her, throwing her deep into the fur, and in the next hour forgot about pleasing his mother, or his hatred of Ardhu, or the treachery of An’kelet and Fynavir. Khyloq, perhaps wisely realising she had no chance of escape and glad at least that he was not a smelly old brute who took pleasure from beatings or humiliation, was less reticent than he had feared. When he was done he collapsed across her, and slept almost immediately, snoring lightly with his face buried in the long red coils of her hair.
And dreamed of red hair, but not that of the chieftain’s daughter Khyloq, his captive bride.
The foxglove hair of the friend who was yet his foe… Amhar who was now Gal’havad.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MAIMED KING
In their night-time camp beneath a lone pine under strange, unfamiliar eastern skies, Ardhu was woken from sleep by a sound he had not heard for a very long time. He rolled over and stared at the sky, saw wings white against the golden-red orb of the rising sun. Beside him Gal’havad stirred. “What is that sound?” he said sleepily. “It is like the wail of a lost soul seeking its barrow-mound.”
Pelahan, cooking a hare on a makeshift spit in a little hollow near the camp, glanced up. “It is a seagull, little lord. We are almost at the Wastelands now. The great waters of the Northern Sea will be spread out before you once we pass the next hill.”
The companions rose and broke their fast, then mounted their steeds once more. They fared into the burgeoning light, passing stunted shrubs beaten low by the wind and spare, tall trees of a type unseen in their western home. More gulls appeared, screeching and flapping overhead, squabbling over titbits found amidst the grasses, which were long and tough, yellow under the strengthening sun.
“There’s a strange smell in the air” Gal’havad raised his head and took a deep breath in through his nose. He licked his lips. “I can taste something in my mouth also.”
“That is salt from the sea, Prince,” said Pelahan. “The whole sea is awash with it.”
“It tastes like tears,” murmured Gal’havad, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Pelahan nodded. “Aye. Some say the saltiness is the tears of the Maedh’an na Marah, the Maidens of the Wave, who have the lower bodies of fish but wish for two legs, so that they can come on shore and couple with their mortal lovers. Instead they must take their men Underwave where they drown.”
The trail wound up a shallow slope, cresting a dune made of sand and earth, and once on top Pelahan signalled for a moment’s halt. He turned his cadaverous face into the wind and let out a long, painful sigh. Ardhu was sure he saw tears standing in his weary, faded eyes. “The Wastelands lie before you,” he said.
The companions looked. Ahead they saw an endless stretch of coastline, sand mingling with rough flinty shore. Sea grasses blew, hissing in the wind, and water streaked in amongst them, making small free-standing islets where birds nested—terns, gulls, plovers. The water beyond was choppy and dark, and the sky above it a flat iron-grey. A northern sea, colder and less kindly than the turquoise waters off the coasts of Belerion in the farthest west, and even more fierce than the Ibhernian Sea, which formed a barrier between Prydn and its sister isle.
“It will not be long now before we reach the Maimed King,” said Pelahan. “I pray he still lives. I have been gone long and all his men have abandoned him. He is alone, in his agony and despair.”
“Before we meet this King, tell me more of what has happened here,” said Ardhu, as the party descended the dune and cantered along the bleak seashore under the threatening sky, with frightened nesting birds bursting up before their horse’s hooves.
“King An-fortas ruled the East, the land of Y-khen, for many years; he held this coast as you held the west, keeping back raiders who came across from the Flatlands in their boats seeking land and occasional plunder. But he grew old and he refused to see that he could no longer war as a young man… he fought a Northern Man from the Ice Mountains, huge as a giant with hair the colour of the sun, and though he killed the invader, he took a dagger-wound in the thigh which crippled him. Now you know the law, Terrible Head… a king yourself. A king who is blemished bodily must not be allowed to reign. The King and the Land are united in the eyes of the Spirits, and if one is damaged and failing, so will the other be. But An-fortas was loved by his people and none wished death to him, so he ruled on and did not hand his kingship to his son. His health worsened, and no healer could cure his wound… and then a sickness came, and whole villages perished from the delta right down the coast. At one time the sea-strand was alive with fishermen, but look now, it is empty, a place where the gulls play with dead men’s bones. Aye, those plague-touched men did not even get a pyre for their last journey, but lay where they fell, food for birds and crabs.”
They travelled on a short way, clambering over dunes, forcing their way through tangled bushes stiff with salt. Suddenly Hwalchmai gave a shout. Rising in his saddle, he peered into the distance, eyes shaded by his hand. “I can see a structure built upon the beach. Birds gather over it, like those that hover over biers where the dead are laid that their spirits may be set free.”
“I fear we may be too late,” said Pelahan grimly. “Let us ride with haste.”
The companions cantered down the beach, splashing through the tidal pools, and soon reached a circular structure wrought of stout timbers like Woodenheart, where the rites of the newly dead
were spoken. However, there the similarity ended–unlike Woodenheart, its carefully shaped posts were crammed closely together, forming a tight barricade against both the inward-creeping tides and the intrusion of the outside world. The wood it was carved from was dark, smoothed by the abrading salt and spray, and it held a sombre, almost menacing air. A small v-shaped entrance was the only passage into the interior, the gap so small it was impossible to get a clear view of what lay inside.
The companions dismounted and Pelahan fell to his knees in the sand as if overcome, holding his head and rocking back and forth, gibbering in the strange eastern dialect which held words unknown in the rest of Prydn due to migration from the Lowlands and the far North.
Ardhu approached the timber circle with caution. Bowing before it, he cast down some bluestone chips he had brought from Khor Ghor as an offering to its guardians, whoever they were. Then he squeezed himself through the v-shaped entrance; no mean feat, despite that he was still a slender and wiry-built man.
Inside Ardhu beheld an unsettling sight. A giant tree trunk stood upended, its head buried deep in the sands, burrowing down toward the Underworld. Twisted roots snaked toward the hazy sun, and the marks of axes could be seen preserved upon them where the tree had been hacked from the ground. Upended cinerary urns circled it and clustered around the walls of the enclosure.
On this makeshift altar lay the body of a man, spread-eagled, staring open-eyed at the heavens. He was old but still tall and muscled, with white hair and beard that streamed down the protruding roots of the stump. Fine clothes he wore, a tunic of woven nettle-fibres, a belt held in place with polished bone hooks and a necklace of hundreds of perforated shells that clattered in the sea-breeze. His legs were bare, spread apart. In his right thigh was a great gash, open like a mouth, its lips stained black with putrefaction.
Ardhu went to his side and held his golden armlet in front of the open mouth. The metal fogged; the man still lived.
“Per-Adur!” he shouted. “Come at once. The Maimed King is in here… we must get him out and tend to him. There may not be much time!”
Per-Adur climbed through the narrow gap, puffing and panting as he did so, and rushed to his lord’s side. Disgust darkened his face as he smelt the odour of rancid flesh. “I will do what I can,” he said, “but this is not a good place, in this house of death. Do you not mark what this circle, lord? The Maimed King has come here to give himself to his gods.”
“Well, pray they will not take him yet,” said Ardhu, “at least not until I know what ails this land and how it may affect the rest of Prydn.”
Between them the two men lifted the supine body of the King. He was heavier than he looked, and his head flopped forward as if he were indeed dead. Carefully they squeezed him through the gap in the timber posts and laid him out on the sandy ground. Hwalchmai, Bohrs and Gal’havad stared, dumb-founded.
Pelahan rose from the ground, wiping his haggard, deathly face, and beckoned to Ardhu’s men to follow him. “This way, with the King. We will take him to the old village where the people of the East once lived in joy. An-fortas’s hall still stands, though ruinous.”
Crossing the salt-marsh with the Maimed King lying over the neck of Per-Adur’s horse, the company reached dryer land and a deep stand of tall pines. Inside, amidst the green of the trees, was a shallow ditch with a dilapidated wattle fence spanning it. Passing this ramshackle palisade, the companions entered the remnants of a village. Huts lay tumbled in the pine needles, roofs ripped away by the winds, amidst a sea of animal bones, not from any merry feast but from beasts that seem to have died where they stood and then were left to decay.
The central hut, large and thick-walled, still retained its wattle roof, and it was here Ardhu’s men carried An-fortas the Maimed King. They placed him on a bier made of their fur cloaks and saddle blankets and Per-Adur knelt to minister to him, while the others stoked up a fire to warm the dreary place.
“It is bad,” said the healer, as he prodded inside An-fortas’s wound with a pair of fine bone tweezers. “I have never seen worse. I am surprised he has survived this long. There is only one chance… and that is if I can burn the wound with fire and purify it. However, to do such a thing to one so ill might be worse than letting him go to peaceful rest amongst the Ancestors.”
“Peaceful rest?” Pelahan’s voice was hoarse. “Feel how he burns already!” He placed his mottled hand on the sick man’s brow. “Surely your craft could bring him no more pain that what he suffers now.”
“You were told,” said Bohrs, a bit gruffly, “that we are warriors, not magic men. Maybe you should have asked the Merlin to come here instead.”
“If he dies,” said Pelahan, “it is the beginning of the end of all Kings of this Age of Men. For you, too, Ardhu Pendraec.” He rocked back onto his heels, suddenly staring at his ruined hands as if they were alien to him. “I have not told you the whole story, men of the West,” he murmured breathlessly. “I am not just the servant and messenger of An-fortas. I am his son. The people who pass this accursed place on the long trade-roads into the West, call me the Fisher King, for that is all I can do now, with illness consuming my flesh… fish these coasts to provide some small sustenance for me and my failing sire. Once we were masters over these lands and all in them… this settlement was called Kar-Bonek, and was a mighty centre of trade, where chiefs from the Middle and Lowlands exchanged metals and riches with us… but now my father lies fallen, with a wound that will not heal, and I… am the lord of naught but fish! I should have listened to the shamans and done what needed to be done when his illness unmanned him, but I would not move my hand and take up the flint knife. I loved him too much, and that was my weakness… and so the Spirits struck me down as well. Then fatal illness ravaged our tribe, and pestilence was followed by the Ghort, the hunger, the famine. The Spirits are angry, and the Land withers and is not reborn in spring.”
Gal’havad approached An-fortas’s bier and gazed into the face of the mortally sick man. Grey and soft it looked, as if already mouldering. “The look of the Otherworld is about him,” he said softly. “His spirit seeks to leave the flesh that trammels it.”
“I fear you are right,” Per-Adur murmured. “But let us get water into him; he probably has not had drink or nourishment for many days.”
“Here… you may use my holy cup.” Gal’havad took out the twilight-hued stone cup that came from the Sacred Pool and proffered it. “This is the cup bestowed upon me by the Lady Mhor-gan. She is a great magic-woman, a priestess, and the water it came from is blessed above all others, the birth-pool of Abona. Maybe its qualities can revive the Maimed King.”
Per-Adur’s expression was dubious but he bowed his head in agreement… after all, what harm could it do? Taking the small stone cup from the youth, he filled it with water from his pig’s bladder flask and handed it back to Gal’havad. “The cup is yours to use, my Prince.”
Gal’havad leaned over the Maimed King, thinking how mighty he must have been in his youth, a golden warrior who could cast spear and shoot bow and fight enemies with his axe. Now he was just a broken shell, his kingship robbed by the wound in his leg. Quietly he mouthed a prayer to Nud Cloudmaker, who, besides being lord of the Milky Way and Snarer of Souls, was a healer-god with a pack of red-eared dogs that licked the wounds of the afflicted until their poisons dissolved. Gal’havad wished such magic dogs would appear now; though even hounds of the Underworld might be hard pressed to heal such an evil wound as that in the thigh of An-fortas.
The water from the little cup trickled onto the parched lips of the King. Gal’havad gently pulled the cracked lower lip down to allow more of the fluid to get into the injured man’s mouth. An-fortas made an unexpected gasping noise and began to writhe on the furs, fighting his fever, perhaps fighting his imminent death.
His eyelids flickered, and suddenly he gazed up straight into the face of Gal’havad. “Who is this I see?” he croaked, voice rasping out of his parched throat. “Are you one of the
Everliving Ones, come to guide me across the Great Plain to Moy Mell beyond? Are you, with your bright hair like flame, the Peaked Red One?” He spoke an ancient eastern name for Bhel in his Year-End aspect, when he carried his burning light down into the depths of Winter, leading a spiral-trail of spirits behind him.
Gal’havad touched his red hair, pushing it back from his face so that An-fortas could see him clearly. “No, lord. I am just a mortal man. I am Gal’havad of Khor Ghor, son of Ardhu Pendraec the Stone Lord of Prydn, and I am here, with my father and the best of his men, to aid you and your son, the Fisher King.”
“Gal’havad.” The old man grasped his sleeve with shaking fingers. “Hawk of Summer… a saviour come from the Summerlands, despite your protests that you are just a man… I can see purity and goodness in you, with my failing eyes; maybe you of all men could bear the cup of gold that can restore the world, the cup that was taken away.”
“What cup is this, Lord An-fortas?” asked Ardhu uneasily, remembering his dreams, remembering the muttered words of Merlin as he fell deep in trance in Khor Ghor.
An-fortas paused, chest heaving as he struggled to take a normal breath. “In better times I had a golden mug wrought for me from the finest gold in Ibherna. Many Moons their smiths laboured to make it true and fair—a rimmed beaker, with a handle fastened to it by gold rivets. It was not a cup for a chieftain to hold in his hand to show off to his underlings—it was a sacred holy thing, whereby men could commune with the gods by drinking mead flavoured with henbane, which would open the door of the Unworld to them. It was for communion with the sky, with Bhel himself, and also for libation to the Earth, to the Lady whose womb we all return to. It could never be set down, for its bottom was fashioned in a curve.”
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 12
