“Mordraed!” Gal’havad thrust the crowds aside, struggling through the press of bodies towards his kinsman. “Tell me, I beg you… what has happened in my absence? Where is my mother, Fynavir?”
Mordraed jumped a little at the sight of the other youth but immediately regained his composure. “I am sorry to speak words that will grieve you,” he said… loudly, so that all assembled could hear. “But the Lady Fynavir is being held a prisoner. And so is the Lord An’kelet!”
“A prisoner!” Gal’havad stopped in his tracks and stared at Mordraed as if he had gone insane. “But she is the Queen of Kham-El-Ard! And An’kelet is my father’s closest friend! Mordraed, what madness do you speak?”
The insincere smile vanished from Mordraed’s lips. “Your dam is a traitor and the Lord An’kelet, the foreigner, with her. There is no easy way to say it, my friend… but as you are now a Man of the Tribe I will speak to you as a Man and not a child. Fynavir of Ibherna has played the whore for An’kelet of Ar-morah for many years and now she has been caught…”
Gal’havad stood as if he had been struck, blood draining from his face. Unable to speak, he mutely shook his head in denial.
At that moment, the crowds behind him parted. The angry buzz of voices within the hall fell still. Ardhu stood in the doorway, hard-faced as a sarsen stone, with Caladvolc a brand of fire in his hand. Hwalchmai and Per-Adur flanked him with weapons ready as he entered the Great Hall and strode purposefully toward Mordraed on the raised area near his seat of power. His gaze burned into the dark youth, taking in his stance and attire. Anger flared within him, and old mistrust.
“You!” he shouted. “Why do you stand there, as if you were lord of Kham-El-Ard? Where is my queen and my chief-warrior? What have you done with them, bastard?”
He raised his sword but at that moment Mordraed did something Ardhu had not expected. Casting down his weapons, the son of Morigau flung himself to the floor at his feet, falling face down in the rushes in a position of utter subjugation and humility, his back and neck exposed to potential blows from above. “Great Stone Lord,” he said, “I beg that you do not bring the force of your wrath down on me, who only has the honour of your house foremost in my mind. I have done nothing to shame or betray you, you who are my close kinsman… unlike others who are dear to your heart.”
Distrust still burned within Ardhu, and reaching down he grabbed Mordraed’s tunic and hauled him roughly to his feet. “Do not seek to flatter me with words, son of a woman with a snake’s tongue,” he spat. “Speak now and speak clearly… and tell me what has happened here!”
Mordraed nodded toward Agravaen. “It is my brother who you must ask, lord. He is the one who first saw that a great wrong was being committed on you under your very roof.”
Ardhu frowned, perplexed. Agravaen! He had watched the thick, rough boy blossom these past months, becoming dedicated to war-craft and eager to please him. Stupid he might be, but Ardhu had seen no malice or duplicity in him. He wanted to serve. He wanted to be in the warband, away from the malign influence of the mother who thought of him as less than nothing, a child she would have exposed on a cliffside if she had had the choice.
“Agravaen…” Ardhu ordered, “Speak!”
The boy lumbered forward, licking his lips nervously. His eyes darted from Mordraed to Ardhu to the rush-strewn floor. “Terrible Head, please do not be wrathful, for I am loyal to you” he said, his voice cracking. “But I have ill news for you. When I was out… hunting… with my companions I saw An’kelet of Ar-morah and Lady Fynavir ride out into the Valley, their manner passing strange. Unbeknownst to them, I followed the trail of their horses to a hidden place and there I saw a sight that will burn in my mind forever—they lay together rutting like beasts upon the grass. My Lord…” his voice rose and his eyes rolled almost hysterically—he was obviously terrified, fearing that Ardhu’s wrath at this evil news might be directed at him, “they must be put to death, given to the Stones! All will be made right then.”
Ardhu went rigid. “Be silent!” His fist shot out, striking Agravaen full in the mouth. He fell backwards, lips swelling and bleeding.
Spinning around on his heel, Ardhu approached Mordraed, yanking him roughly towards him by the front of his tunic so that they were mere inches apart. “Take your brother and get out!” he shouted. “Remove yourself from my sight. If you have harmed them, my wife and chief warrior, I will have your innards ripped from your body as you watch…”
“They are both unharmed.” Mordraed’s voice was flat, cold. “My men have them bound in the cave below Kham-El-Ard, waiting for the Stone Lord’s justice.”
Ardhu stopped and suddenly stared straight into Mordraed’s face, incredulous. “Your men? Mordraed son of Morigau… in this place nothing’s yours!”
His arm shot out, striking the young man just as he had struck his younger brother. Mordraed staggered back but did not fall beneath the blow; he stood wiping blood from his lip where one of Ardhu’s twisted bronze armlets had cut it, his deep blue eyes blackening with hatred.
Abruptly those fathomless eyes became shuttered, the face expressionless, revealing nothing more. He bowed curtly to Ardhu. “I will go as you decree, my uncle.” Grabbing the arm of the still-reeling Agravaen, he propelled the younger man out of the hall and away amidst the huts clustered on the hilltop.
Ardhu turned, his visage grey, strained. “Ka’hai!” he called for his foster-brother, who knelt, still wracked with grief, by the doorway of the Hall. “You have been with me from the time I was a babe; brother of my heart, if not my blood. Come with me, and support me as you did when I was a child. I need you now as much as I need the arms of men like Bohrs and Hwalchmai.”
Led by Ka’hai, Ardhu left Kham-El-Ard and took the long spiralling pathway down to the waters of the Sacred Pool that lay below the vast bulk of the Crooked Hill. There were signs of great trampling and tumult in the undergrowth, clods of earth torn up and smears of blood on foliage and ground.
“They are imprisoned in the cave, Ardhu,” said Ka’hai tearfully. “Ba-lin and Bal-ahn are on guard, along with many others. An’kelet, as you might imagine, was not easy to subdue. He killed two of the yearling boys from the local settlements when Agravaen discovered his… treachery, and injured many more. He was only taken because Agravaen smote him unconscious with his hammer; but even that was only a small respite… once he woke the battle fury came on him and he slew again and again. Blood was spilled in Kham-El-Ard where blood has never been spilt before, and you can see by the gore around us that he was still fighting when we managed to drag him here.”
Ardhu nodded stiffly. “Where are the dead?”
Ka’hai gestured to several biers lying beside the pond, covered with painted deerskins. Flies buzzed about them in clouds. “We have done no rites for them, Ardhu, to send them over the Great Plain to the Land of the Ancestors.”
“And why has this not been done? Where is the Merlin?”
Ka’hai shrugged his shoulders. “That is the other evil news I must tell… we do not know what has happened to wise Merlin. He has not been seen for days, at Deroweth, Kham-El-Ard or Khor Ghor.”
Ardhu ran his hand over his brown hair in an agitated motion. “Evil news indeed, Brother Ka’hai. All goes amiss for me in these dark times.” He strode over to the biers and dragged back the deerskins one by one. Beneath the hides lay tangles of putrefying flesh, splintered femurs and ribs poking up from blackened stumps that seemed scarcely human, especially since beasts had been gnawing on them in the night. “Have them taken to the Old Henge and burn them on pyres,” he ordered. “Have all the priests come from Deroweth to chant and sing and send their spirits on their long journey… then have them taken to Khor Ghor and interred with honour.”
“But many of them were a bad lot,” exclaimed Ka’hai. “Defiant and rebellious… they would have soon been sent home to their families.”
“No matter,” said Ardhu. “In rooting out the poison in the midst of Kham-El-Ard,
they did me a great service and hence they shall have fitting burial in the Tomb of All Hope.”
Leaving the reeking biers, he walked on toward the cave in the broad chalky hillside where An’kelet and Fynavir were imprisoned. As he neared it, he could see two dozen of his men surrounding its mouth; they had set up a great blockade in the entrance, an infill made of a stout tree trunk. They were clearly ill at ease, with drawn bows, daggers and clubs at the ready.
Ardhu approached Bal-ahn who stood nearest to the entrance, his bronze axe in his hand. “Unblock it,” he said, nodding toward the makeshift barricade. “I will speak to them.”
“Lord, no,” said Bal-ahn uneasily. “An’kelet’s strength in his anger is that of ten men… we could barely control him as it was. I would counsel you, as your companion of many years, to build a great fire here in the cave mouth, using the tree at kindling, and finish this vile matter in the only way it can end.”
Ardhu’s eyes glinted dangerously. “I do not ask for your counsel. Drag the tree away so that I may go inside. An’kelet of Ar-morah will not harm me.”
Bal-ahn inclined his head and gestured to the other warriors to start removing the barrier. They chopped at the tree with their axes, hacking out a space where their chief could pass. “I will come with you, Ardhu,” said Bal-ahn when the last cut was made.
Ardhu put his hand on his shoulder, more weary now than angry. “My thanks… but it is for me alone to do.”
Taking a deep breath, Ardhu slid through the gap and entered the cave. The thin sunlight entered with him and lit up the mossy, stone-filled floor and the two figures crouched at the back amidst the rubble. He could see Fynavir’s pale hair, unbound and tangled, and her tear-streaked face, marred by bruises, floating like a sad moon in the shadows.
Beside her An’kelet stirred. Abruptly he stood up, and Ardhu noticed that his tunic was stiff with gore. Blood also matted his hair and stained his arms and face. A wound on his temple leaked slowly, but most of the blood upon him was not his.
Slowly, he approached Ardhu. His eyes were wary.
Ardhu unbuckled his belt, with Caladvolc hanging from it, and cast it to one side. “I am not here to kill you,” he said, his voice flat. “Not yet at any rate. I have come to hear, from your own mouth, what has happened. An’kelet of Ar-morah, my chief warrior, my friend… I want truth from you for once and for all. Have you lain with my woman?”
An’kelet took a deep, shuddering breath and suddenly fell to his knees before Ardhu. “Pick up your blade and smite me to the death!” he cried. “For I have betrayed you. I have lied to you long enough and would have an end. But do not harm Fynavir; I seduced her when she was lonely and weak.”
“No, An’kelet, no!” Fynavir ran forward and threw her arms around her lover, almost as if Ardhu was not there at all. “If you die, then I will go with you to that Otherland!”
Ardhu stood unmoved, his cheeks grey. “She is as guilty as you. Her face tells me the truth about what has passed between you more than any words. You both deserve to die.”
“Have mercy, Ardhu,” An’kelet whispered hoarsely. “Not on me, for I know what I deserve. But on her. She is only a weak woman…”
Ardhu glared at Fynavir. “I did not say I would kill her, only that she deserves to die. No, she will stay here. She is the Land, or so the people think, and though she is barren soil, failing of even her beauty…” he spoke harshly, words deliberately cruel, “she is still considered the daughter of a Goddess on Earth. So she shall stay, by my side and in my bed, and she shall be punished besides in any way that I see as fitting.”
“If she lives, I can ask for no more. Now take Caladvolc and drive it into my heart. We are undone, I have broken all my vows, and I cannot bear the shame.”
Ardhu picked up the sword and drew it from its sheath. The blade gleamed red as blood as the faint beams of sunlight trailing into the cave struck it. Fynavir began to whimper, “No, no, no.”
Ardhu approached An’kelet and placed the sharpened tip of the blade against his chest. Caladvolc shook in his hand. Tears streaked his cheeks as his arm muscles tensed, ready to thrust the sword into the heart of his long-time friend. An’kelet bowed his head, closing his eyes, lips moving in silent prayers to the gods of the Underworld, to Hwynn the White and his father Nud, asking that they might forgive him his crimes and still welcome him onto the Plain of Honey.
Suddenly Ardhu’s arm dropped. He gave an awful, strangled cry of mingled grief, anger and despair and thrust Caladvolc, not into An’kelet’s heart, but into his side above the hip.
An’kelet gasped and twisted in agony, grabbing at the blade that pierced him. The edges sheared into his fingers, drawing more blood.
Teeth gritted, Ardhu took a step back and yanked the blade from the wound. More blood flowed, pooling on the cave floor. Fynavir curled into a ball, sobbing. The redness from her lover’s wound soaked into her hair, turning it bright crimson.
Ardhu slammed Caladvolc into its sheath, uncleaned, still dripping. “I will not take your life, in gratitude for the years you have served me. But now, wounded by my hand, I will send you forth to live or to die as the spirits see fit, but to receive no aid or succour from any man, woman or child in Kham-El-Ard, Deroweth, or the Place-of-Light. The Crossroads of the World and the entire West is barred to you also, and if you set foot in my territory, by Bhel’s face and the Everlasting Sky, I will hunt you down and kill you like a wild beast.”
He backed up to the barricade in the cave mouth and shouted for Bal-ahn and the others to come and widen the gap. The men of the warband poured into the cavern, setting hands upon An’kelet and dragging him out into the open air. Curses they flung at him, for what he had done, and they spat at him and made signs against evil. Holding his injured side, blood welling through his bone-white fingers, he looked from face to face—the men he had fought beside and the lads he had trained as warriors. They had been his friends, his companions, his students… now they gazed at him with hatred, his sworn enemies unto death.
“What shall we do with him?” shouted one. “Let us take him to the river and drown him, and let her waters cleanse away his sin!”
“No!” Ardhu shoved the man out of the way. “Lay no hand upon him. He is a disease, a blight amongst us. Let him go and crawl into some hole and bleed to death, his blood feeding the land of our forebears, the land he has sullied!”
He turned to An’kelet himself, his eyes tormented. “Get you gone, before I change my mind!”
Gasping, hands pressed to his leaking wound, An’kelet limped down the steep, wooden slopes toward the riverbank, a red ragged figure of death and despair. “No, no, do not let him go to die in dishonour…” Fynavir ran from the cave and collapsed at her husband’s feet, clinging in supplication to the fringe of his tunic.
Ardhu dragged her up roughly and grabbed her face in his hands, twisting her head so that she was forced to watch her lover stagger away into the trees. “Look upon him well, woman,” he said, voice heavy with weariness and grief. “It is the last you will ever see of him.”
*****
That night at Kham-El-Ard there was a great storm. Thunder crashed overhead and shook the great posts holding up the hall to their very foundations. Men sat about silent and grim, holding their heads in their hands, while women squatted in the rain, wailing as if there had been a death.
Eyes red-rimmed, Gal’havad paced before his father’s high seat, restive and anxious, angry and sorrowful in turn. Ardhu slumped on the chair of antlers, leaning his head on his hand, his visage ashen and his gaze unfocussed. “My father, listen to me,” Gal’havad begged. “You must let me speak to my mother, to find out the real truth of what has happened!”
Ardhu’s lip curled. “There is no need. All was confessed.”
“You will not kill her.” It was a statement, not a question, and edged slightly with danger.
Ardhu glanced up at his son; the youth’s face wore a determined hardness he had not seen before… an
d yet it shone with almost an inner light, a pure flame that made him bow his head in shame and glance away again. “No, I will not have her put to death. She is the daughter of the Goddess on Earth. She is the Land. Whatever man takes the White Woman will be King.”
Gal’havad sighed in relief, his shoulders slumping. He suddenly looked very young again, young and frail.
“But she will have to be punished.”
Gal’havad raised his head, eyes starting to smoulder anew. “Punished? What punishment do you propose? Tell me!”
Ardhu raised his hand; his jaw was set. “It is not for you to question me. I am Stone Lord of Prydn, the Terrible Head, master of the Portal of Ghosts. Go from my sight until you are called for. I dismiss you from my Hall, Prince Gal’havad.”
“Father, you cannot… !” Gal’havad’s voice rose sharply and he took a long stride toward Ardhu’s seat.
Bohrs blocked him, shaking his wild head. Gal’havad glanced down and saw that the burly warrior had his dagger drawn, gleaming in his clenched fist. “You have drawn blade on me,” he said, incredulous.
“I wouldn’t gladly use it, lad,” the heavy-set warrior mumbled. “But you have to go as Ardhu commands. Just do as he says. He will come round… with time.”
Gal’havad’s mouth trembled. “Pray to the spirits it is so… and that this madness that is on him soon leaves!” Turning from Bohrs, he fled from the great Hall and out into the storm.
Ardhu stared after him, eyes dull and without emotion.
*****
Gal’havad staggered through the lashing rain, soaked to the skin, his hair plastered to his skull. He wandered aimlessly amidst the huts, not knowing where to go. His usual place was in a cordoned-off area at the back of the Hall, near the quarters of his parents, hidden behind a hedge of skins stretched over wooden frames to create a private space. He shivered, his teeth starting to chatter as water trickled down the back of his neck.
Suddenly he spotted a familiar figure limned against dull firelight in the low-hanging doorway of the hut where young warriors were quartered while they did their training in arms. “Mordraed!” he shouted, springing forward.
Moon Lord: The Fall of King Arthur - The Ruin of Stonehenge Page 17
