The Wolf and the Crown (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 3)

by A. A. Attanasio

  By that citrus light, they unearthed only roots and rocks, and the deeper they excavated, the more the anguished cries dimmed until they had dug the depth of a grave and heard nothing more of the lost rider.

  Defying the Furor

  Confident that the Shrine of the Dead would remain untouched by the citizens of Verulamium until she returned to use it for her ceremonial purposes, Morgeu journeyed south in her tented wagon. The one guard that she had spared of the four that accompanied the exorcist drove the horses.

  Morgeu lay in the back, upon the loam that covered Terpillius and listened to his dreams. She heard the blood's blue current, soft surges of sexual glory from all the lives he had drained, the great sadness of their disembodied voices, their mortal pain and then the slow, serene rupture of memories and desires into a darkness both great and deep.

  At night, while the guard slumbered in the amber glow of the campfire, the vampyre hovered over him.

  "Leave him be," Morgeu commanded, returning from refreshing herself on the banks of a chill and muttering brook. "I need him."

  "He is such an unhandsome creature." Terpillius regarded with obvious disdain the man's scruffy beard, bulbous, pock-scarred nose, and grimy, travel-worn garments. "For what would you need such a brute, mistress?"

  "He asked that very question of you."

  Terpillius stepped through the campfire, and it flared green. "You told this oaf of me?"

  "He wondered why I am hauling a wagonload of soil."

  Morgeu sat beside the fire, placed several tubers into the ashes to bake, and pulled her gray mantle tighter against the night wind. "Now that he knows, he is glad to leave you undisturbed. His name—"

  "Martius," the vampyre said, annoyed. "I know his name. I can read a soul as well as you. He is a Protector—a Christian."

  "By birth and not with any passion." She warmed her hands in the crackling heat. "Fear him not. Rather, cherish him. He is a Protector—an officer cadet. His sword will prove useful to us."

  Terpillius sat beside the enchantress, and his white shadow stretched into darkness like the moon's path on water. "You have yet to tell me why we travel south."

  "I have been listening to your dreams, Terpillius." Morgeu withdrew a flaming stick from the fire and held it under the vampyre's chin so that his face glowed green. "The lives upon which you've thrived all these many years continue inside you, afloat in the very darkness, the very vacancy you fear. Is that how you cope with the emptiness that you are—by crowding yourself with the lifetimes of others?"

  The vampyre ignored her. "Tell me now why we travel south, mistress."

  "To defy the Furor, Terpillius." She smiled at his jolted expression. "He holds my father's soul in a wizard's body. I want you to take that soul from him and put it here, where it belongs." She took his hand and placed it on her womb so that he felt again the root-blood, the source of life, the beginning of death.

  Breakfast with Nynyve

  While the Duke's archers dug into the forest floor trying to free their lost comrade from the Otherworld, King Arthor tied off his palfrey and wandered among the mammoth trees and uplifted rootledges. He searched for some sign of Nynyve and her fiana.

  "The faerie have taken the defiant rider," Nynyve's resonant voice spoke from a hazel grove shot with sunlight. "He is gone."

  Arthor shoved through the dense branches and found the queen seated on a reed mat with burl bowls of steaming cereal flummery, a basket of chestnuts, hardboiled quails' eggs, a wedge of blue cheese, loaves of apple bread, and a horn of cider. "My lady—the lost bowman is in my protection. I cannot forsake him."

  "Sit down, Arthor. Breakfast with me." Nynyve wore buckskin riding trousers, soft boots laced to her knees, and a red vest embroidered with gold oghams he did not comprehend. "You are a good king—but you are not a god and cannot command the faerie."

  "You are the Celtic queen," he acknowledged, sitting beside her. "The faerie obey you."

  A laugh sparkled from her. "The queen serves the Otherworld, the Annwn. I do not command the obedience of what is greater than I. We must both live within our limits. Here, try this bread."

  Arthor timidly received the twist of apple bread broken by Nynyve's fingers, fearing to eat anything from a pagan queen.

  Nynyve giggled at his trepidation. "I'm not going to poison you. I've come to help you."

  "By stealing away one of my men?" he asked and accepted the morsel.

  "By leading you most directly to Neptune's Toes."

  "You have saved us some hours' travel, for which I am grateful, yet our goal is still a day's ride away."

  "Oh, is it?" She took Arthor's hand that held the bread and took a bite from it. While chewing, she said, "The faerie know their way through this forest better than men. When you leave here, you will find that you have already reached your destination."

  Arthor moved to rise, and the queen took his arm to detain him. "I must go at once," he said. "Duke Marcus is in peril."

  "Yes, he is." Her speckled eyes showed worry. "Doom encloses the Duke. Invaders ride upon him from over the terraces of the sea and swarm also along the shore. I led you here to save him—but you must eat first. You will need strength to fight."

  "I need fighters to fight. You've taken one from me." Arthor stood and backed away. "Will your fiana ride with me?"

  Nynyve shook her head. "They defend only the queen, not Christian dukes—or kings." She motioned to the victuals upon the mat. "My magic has brought you here, Arthor. Will you not trust me now? I tell you, whoever eats of this food will not taste his own blood this day."

  Up the Storm Tree

  Merlin grew frustrated at the bickering of the demon and the Fire Lord, each abandoning Rex Mundi to stalk off on their secret missions of evil and mercy. He grew weary of Dagonet's lisping complaints, I'm thcared. I don't want to be Wecth Mundi anymore. And even Lord Monkey's constant chittering for food had grown tiresome.

  In an evening pasture under a carnage of sunset clouds, Merlin reached skyward for a tendril dangling off a bough of the Storm Tree, Yggdrasil, the planet's towering magnetic field with its roots at the poles penetrating in a tangle to the molten core. The solar wind sometimes buffeted the branches low enough to Middle Earth for mortal beings to grasp and climb upward. And that was what Rex Mundi did.

  Into the timeless sky above twilight, Rex climbed. A horned moon shone over the amethyst crescent of the Earth, far larger than seen from below. Purple craterlands stood visible in the lunar shadows and stark promontories lay clear to view. In the Storm Tree itself, ambrosial mists scrimmed distant crags of waterfalls and a blue tapestry of woodlands and evening fields.

  What ith thith plathe?

  We have climbed to Nightbreak Branch, the lowest level of the Storm Tree," Merlin whispered. "From here, maybe, if you're quiet enough, I can spy my body down below."

  Gweat God! Thith ith Yggdwathil—home of the north godth.

  "All the gods have dwelled here at one time or the other," Merlin spoke soothingly, hoping to calm the dwarf within while they strolled through the pink light of day's end and the soft effulgence of moonbeams. "All that you see around you is an illusion, a mirage woven by your brain in its frantic attempt to make sense of the energies of the sun and the Earth that meet here. In truth, we are now immersed in an ocean of light that floats high in the sky. What we call gods are but another order of being who swim in this sea—mortals on a vaster timescale. They are not to be feared."

  A giantess strode through the mists among the slanted boles of the distant forest, and Merlin cried at the sight of her, "A god comes! Quick, we must hide!"

  I thought you thaid there wath nothing to fear?

  "This is not fear—only respect." Merlin guided Rex Mundi to dive into a bank of great white lilies and grass shimmering with night dew. From this covert, he watched the giantess diminish in size as she approached, condensing to the size of a mortal woman as she strolled past, lissome and fair-haired, garbed in tiffanies and gol
d chains, her sunset-streaked tresses braided intricately over her left shoulder. "It is Keeper of the Dusk Apples—the Furor's mistress!"

  The solar-burnished goddess paused before the grassy bank where Rex Mundi hid. "Come forth, Lailoken. I spotted you sneaking into our Tree. Come forth, before I summon the Furor."

  Bedevere's Doubts

  "Sire!" Bedevere called from among the forest's morning fumes. "Where are you?"

  Arthor shoved through a screen of hazel branches carrying in both arms a folded mat of reeds. "I'm here, Bedevere. I was with Nynyve in this grove."

  Bedevere observed that his king was whole, then used his one arm to pull aside the tangled hazel fronds. "No one is here, sire."

  Arthor peered over the steward's shoulder, astonished. "I just sat with her—right there—but a moment ago."

  "The grass is not even trampled." Bedevere retreated several paces. "This place is bewitched, sire. The rider I sent ahead, he is gone. Utterly gone. No hooftracks. And his voice—it has dimmed away into the depths of the earth. What deviltry is this?"

  "I swear to you—the Celtic queen sent the faerie to guide us. Through those trees we will find Neptune's Toes."

  "That is not possible. We are many leagues away from that cove." Bedevere's refined features had grown pale. "What is that you carry?"

  Arthor did not answer but led the steward back through the forest to where the warband of archers stood aghast around the grave-deep pit wherein they had last heard their comrade's cries. "Men—I have brought us sustenance to strengthen us for the fight that lies ahead." He opened the reed mat on the ground and revealed two bowls of cereal flummery, still steaming, alongside chestnuts, cheese, bread, and a horn of cider. "We must all eat."

  "Where did you get this food, boy?" one of the archers asked suspiciously.

  "You will address him as lord if not sire," Bedevere spoke harshly to the bowman. "Otherwise, mount and return to the army."

  Arthor put a restraining hand on Bedevere's arm and told the tale of what had befallen him in the morning woods. Of the seven remaining archers, only two did not back away from the proffered meal.

  Bedevere spoke for the others, "Sire, we are Christian warriors. We trust in the viaticum we received before this march began. The blood and flesh of our Savior will protect us."

  "The viaticum is guaranteed passport to heaven," Arthor agreed. "This faerie food will keep our souls in our bodies."

  "I'll not eat it," Bedevere averred and backed away.

  "I am ordering you to eat it." Frustrated, Arthor seized a loaf of apple bread and bit into it. "It's not poison. It's the faeries' aid."

  "Unholy food," Bedevere asserted, and the bowmen stubbornly agreed.

  "I am commanding you as your king." Recollecting himself, Arthor again proffered the loaf to his steward, this time with a harsh mien. "Our Savior has taught, we cannot serve two masters. If you fear for your soul, then go and take the vows of a priest. If you stay at my side, I am your master. Eat!"

  Bedevere reluctantly accepted the loaf and nibbled at it.

  "Eat!" Arthor shouted, and Bedevere ate more heartily. "All of you. Eat this food and mount up. Your duke needs our strength."

  "Our duke has made no pledge to you—boy!" The five intractable archers returned to their steeds and watched with glowering expressions as their two comrades reluctantly obeyed the boy-king.

  Legends of Blood

  Cupetianus screamed from where he crouched atop the pantiles of the villa's roof, "They are coming! The Saxons are coming!"

  Duke Marcus stood propped by an oak crutch under the tree arbor of the terrace, watching a band of Wolf Warriors strolling up the beach, forty strong. And on the sea, three flat boats holding ten berserkers each skimmed on the morning waves. "Are the war engines readied?" he asked the four drummers who attended him, and they muttered affirmatively. "Then, get my horse!"

  As the boats hissed onto the beach and the storm warriors climbed the sandy verges, knocking down drying racks and skein lines as they went, wagons loaded with sea rocks tilted on the terraces above, sending boulders rolling down among the invaders.

  Immediately behind the avalanche, the drummers and a score of fishermen armed with tridents, grappling hooks, and fishing spears attacked. Duke Marcus, mounted and grimacing in pain, charged from among the boat sheds, sword raised high, plumed helmet gleaming.

  The Wolf Warriors dodged the tumbling boulders laughing and lifted their battle tunics of human hide to expose their buttocks to the charging Duke and his desperate defenders.

  From among the dunes, a searing wind whistled, and arrows slashed into the Saxons, cutting their laughter to anguished screams.

  Marcus Dumnoni pulled his horse around and the cold fist squeezing his heart relented before a vision as from the legends of blood: mounted archers stampeding along the wet sand, firing as they galloped. Aimed with deadly precision, the volleys felled the Saxons at the front ranks and allowed the fisherfolk to retreat to the colonnade of the seafront villa and watch shielded by the pillars as the cavalry smashed into the Wolf Warriors.

  Though outnumbered, the horsemen drove the berserkers back from the sand verges and down onto the flat strand. Firing from the perimeter, archers slew several ranks of Saxons before the Wolf Warriors, indifferent to death, clambered over their dead and attacked the mounted bowmen. Several horses went down shrieking under the swiping blows of battleaxes, and Marcus lunged forward to join the fray. Behind him came the shouting fishermen.

  An ax split the skull of Marcus' horse and sent him plummeting into the wet sand. A howling berserker reared over him, and the bearded head flew from its shoulders severed by the stroke of Excalibur.

  The bareheaded boy-king pulled his palfrey around and cut a swath through the barbarians, keeping them from the fallen duke. Amazed beyond feeling his pain, Marcus watched Arthor curvet directly into the thickest knot of the melee, striking with both front and rear hooves even as his relentless blade cleaved bone and flesh and his shield fended blows with the improbable image of the serene Virgin Mother.

  Then, the king volted around the fallen raiders and pierced deeper into the fray, driving the enemy ahead of him. In minutes, the Wolf Warriors had become corpses.

  Bors Bona

  Into Londinium, Bors Bona led his troops in a parade boisterous with trumpets and drums and all the panoply of the Empire—eagle standards, plumed cavalry, glittering phalanxes of bronze-armored foot soldiers. The rigorously disciplined men, vigilant from many fierce battles in the north, wore fearsome aspects. Their beardless faces and hard eyes had witnessed every atrocity of war, and many displayed scars from brutal close combat. The commanders wore ancient breastplates, centuries-old heirlooms made of gold and silver plaques engraved with the heads of emperors.

  Boot-jawed and narrow-eyed, Bors Bona bore a pitiless, intent expression hardened by a lifetime of hostility, a lifetime made infamous for sparing no one, not even infants, in the pagan villages he destroyed.

  With military rigor, he arrayed his men in parade formation across the mosaic-paved courtyard before the governor's palace and saluted the city's magister militum, Severus Syrax. The governor imperiously greeted them from the reviewing balcony, wearing the blue, wide-sleeved dalmatic of a magister.

  Later, among the pink-marble columns and gleaming statuary of the breezy and sun-filled throne room, Bors Bona squinted at Merlin's form dressed in red and black garments and wolfskin boots. "You're garbed like a damnable barbarian!"

  Gorlois shrugged. "When among the Saxons."

  "Not good enough, Merlin!" Bors Bona, iron-gray hair brush-cut close to his skull, turned a tight stare on the magister militum, who sat on a cushioned marble throne with beringed fingers interlocked before his coiffed beard. "He has gone over, Syrax. He fornicates with the enemy!"

  Severus Syrax rolled his eyes at the very thought of the old wizard, with his dragon-socket eyes and lipless adder-smile, in sexual collusion with anyone. "Please, Bors, steady yours
elf. The wizard brokers peace with our foes. There is precedence for this with Vortigern."

  "Don't even whisper that dungful name in my presence!" Bors Bona spat. Vortigern had invited the Saxons to Britain as mercenaries to fight Christian warlords. The pagans had then turned against him and began demanding tribute, stealing more land.

  "This is different, Bors." Severus Syrax pointed to the wizard. "Merlin has found a way to turn war into trade—and to fill our coffers with gold from those who will not have peace."

  "Gold!" Bors Bona appeared about to vomit. "No amount of gold can pay for the blood and land our people have lost to those savages. I've brought my army to Londinium to make you see sense, Syrax—or, if necessary, to beat sense into you."

  Syrax's kohl-rimmed eyes widened. "Merlin, Bors Bona has just threatened me. Oh, my."

  "Perhaps he is weary from his march and not thinking clearly," Gorlois said, feeling the Furor's strength coiling through him and unwinding like fog. He reached out and slapped a hand on the warlord's shoulder guard. "Rest now, brother."

  Bors grabbed his sword. Before he could draw it, his eyes fluttered, and he sagged to the ground.

  Keeper of the Dusk Apples

  Rex Mundi stepped forth from the brake of dew-heavy grass and lilies and stood agape before the woman with eyes of banded light.

  She ith a goddeth!

  "Lailoken!" she scolded hotly. "What mischief are you up to? You thought you could trespass Yggdrasil—but I am devoted to wandering the twilight lands of Dusk searching for this dim country's rare wine-apples. And I found you! What mischief now?"

  "No mischief, goddess." Merlin bowed politely. "I am looking for my body. I came up here for the wider vantage."

  "Your body!" The goddess looked askance at him. "What is this—this conglomeration you occupy, demon?"

  "Just as you see, goddess." Rex Mundi doffed the conical wizard's hat and exposed henna hackles, black wire-whisker beard, and feral eyes in a leathern mask. "I am conjoined with good man Dagonet, his kindly familiar Lord Monkey, as well as an old cohort of mine, Azael."