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

by A. A. Attanasio

  "Father, I am sorry if ... "

  "Sorry?" His perplexity vanished as a grin widened across his face, and he clapped an arm over her shoulders and walked with her toward the dismal light. "You are a wonder beyond my greatest hopes, Morgeu. Yes! A wonder! My father is king—and I will succeed him. Yes! I admire your cunning. Oh yes, I admire it very much—and I will be proud to have you for my mother."

  []

  Mother Mary, today commemorates that holy day you birthed our Savior in a manger. By God's grace, this morning I will receive the pledge of the Celtic chieftain Urien. I am grateful to our Father for this victory—and saddened by the deaths of my personal guard. Was I wrong, as Kyner says, for sacrificing them to win Urien's pledge? A dozen good and faithful Christian men slain for the allegiance of two score clans of battle-fierce and pagan Celts. I am not a ruthless king—am I? My guards were warriors. They fought at my side, and I shared their risk. Yet, I am alive, and they are all dead, save Bedevere. Good Bedevere. He has consoled me for my decision, declaring that I acted from my heart and not my head and so won the fealty of Urien's heart. He aids my mind as well as my physical well-being. I cannot thank you enough for sending him to me. He is a man who notices everything, every detail, and comprehends it all with pithy insight. He has distilled his observations to a precise, one-word assessment for each of my warriors. Kyner disapproved the loss of my guard, for, as Bedevere says, my stepfather is the Optimist. For all his gruff bearing, Kyner believes that virtue shall be rewarded and good triumph over evil as a matter of course. To sacrifice my guard in striving for victory, that is too aggressive for his optimism. As for Urien, Bedevere labels him the Idealist, champion of noble purpose. My sacrifice is a noble act worthy of the reward of his devotion. Lot is the Cynic, certain that every action springs from selfish motives. And Marcus the Fatalist sees all events as inevitable—hence his willingness to ride against the invaders of his realm and accept the consequences as fated. Bedevere calls himself the Realist, for he abhors speculation and strives to view the world shorn of dreams. And me? When I asked him, he simply smiled and sucked on his pipe. "You," he said, "you are the King."

  Celtic Christmas

  On Christmas morning, Lord Urien Durotriges, chieftain of the Celtic clans of the coast, knelt before King Arthor in the temple of the goddess Aradia and pledged himself and his clan to the service of the young monarch. A cold rain drizzled through the enclosing aspens, and fog climbed the hillcrest of Maiden Castle, where three nights earlier Wolf Warriors had reveled.

  The priests who accompanied Lord Marcus and Chief Kyner refused to set foot in the pagan temple. They had advised the young king to seek the conversion of both Urien and Lot, and Arthor refused. He considered himself king of all Britain, and Christians and worshipers of the old ways were equally his subjects. With that in mind, he agreed to accept Lord Urien's pledge within the ancient temple.

  Bedevere reluctantly accompanied him. He remembered nothing of the dark battle where Arthor had intervened to save the Celtic chieftain's life. For an entire day afterward, he had lain unconscious. Even now, three days later, his head still ached from the blow that had toppled him into darkness, and his wallet of medicinal herbs from the Orient offered no remedy.

  The sight of his steward doddering between incense trays, his bald head bandaged, stirred remorse in King Arthor. When the elaborate ceremonies of chants, bard songs, stick dances, and incense evocations of the Daoine Sid ended and Lord Urien and his clan chiefs had all knelt before him and been dubbed by the touch of Excalibur, he sat with Bedevere on the temple steps.

  Ritual fires blazed on the temple grounds, and Druids in white cloaks and five-sided clogs oversaw rites of torch-juggling and round dances.

  "Kyner admonished me for sacrificing so many to save Urien," Arthor said, noting the pallor of his steward's gaunt cheeks. "I'm relieved to find you well enough to attend these rites. It's God's gift to me on the birthday of his Son, our good shepherd."

  "Shepherding is a despised trade in the Holy Land," Bedevere said quietly, watching the Celtic dancers spiral among the fires. "Shepherds are like thieves. They graze their sheep on other people's lands, and they pilfer. They're not allowed to fulfill judicial office or serve as witnesses in court. No one buys from them, for it can be assumed that they possess only stolen property. And yet our Savior identified himself with them."

  "Messiah born in a manger—friend to tax collectors, lepers, and prostitutes—executed ignominiously—" Arthor shook his head. "He surely delivered God's love to where that love is most needed."

  "And so we find you, a Christian king, here among the pagans." Bedevere smiled wanly. "You are an unusual king, sire."

  "I was not always noble." He clasped Bedevere's hand gratefully. "Until this past summer, I believed myself lowborn. There is no God-given difference between high and low—I see that now. That distinction is an artifice. The Savior knew."

  Bedevere nodded wearily. "And he died for us to know it."

  Awakening

  Bors Bona awoke in a chamber paneled with green jasper between slender columns of lapis lazuli. He threw off a mink coverlet and stood in his nightshirt before a window three times his height. Across the manicured lawns and topiary hedges, beyond brownstone palace walls, Londinium's early-morning streets lay nearly empty. A few stars hung like spurs above the tile roofs.

  On the main boulevard, he watched a tented wagon clatter, driven by a woman whose red tresses spilled from under her hood. A peculiar feeling twisted in him as the wagon dwindled into the distance.

  The main doors, padded with blue leather and nailed with brass stars, swung open, and Severus Syrax rushed in accompanied by a frightened Count Platorius and a dozen guards and half as many priests. "You are well! Thank God!" The magister militum pointed his guards to the billowy masses of curtains beside the windows, and the priests followed them there, swinging smoking censers and chanting scripture.

  Bors Bona ran both hands over his bristle-cropped cranium. The last he remembered, he had been standing with his peers in the throne room inflamed at their alliance with the Foederatus. "What has happened, Syrax? Where's my sword? My armor? Call my captain!"

  "Bors! Bors! You are well!" Severus Syrax and the sullen-eyed count looked for the priests to signal that all was secure before they approached the warlord. "There's murder afoot and soldiers slain."

  "Vampyres!" Count Platorius gasped, the discolored flesh under his eyes darker for want of sleep. "A horrid gang of them!"

  Bors Bona placed his fists on his hips. "What've you done to me, Syrax? Why am I unarmed and in this chamber?"

  "I?" Severus Syrax appeared hurt. "Bors, I've done nothing but protect you. Ask Platorius. Merlin enchanted you."

  "He put you to sleep days ago," the count confirmed.

  "Where is that demon?" Bors yelled. "Give me my sword! I'll have his head."

  "He's gone, Bors. Gone!" Severus Syrax wrung his bejeweled fingers. "The vampyres carried him away." He went to a corner wardrobe and opened its doors. "Your garments and sword are here. When you're dressed, I'll conduct you to where your troops are quartered. They have been concerned for you."

  "Help us, Bors," the count pleaded, following him to the wardrobe. "Evil forces conspire against us. Severus and I, we seek peace—and a lucrative trade relationship with King Wesc. But strong evil opposes us—evil that has carried Merlin away. He may be a demon, but he is a demon won to the service of our Savior and of peace. And now evil has taken him from us and thwarts our peace. Evil opposes us, Bors!"

  "I, too, oppose you—or I did." Bors lifted his swordbelt from the wardrobe and unsheathed the blade. Now I am in your hands and at your mercy, he said to himself, glad to have a weapon in his grip. Who knows how my troops have been compromised by you weasels while I've been entranced. "I must rethink my allegiance, comrades. Vampyres have seized Merlin, you say. Well, then, I will not serve the unholy. Surely not Merlin—nor his puppet king. If peace is to be won by trade with
our enemies, so be it, though history has shown that such alliances are foolish. Better that than a kingdom overrun by vampyres." He slid his sword back into its scabbard, satisfied that it was intact. "My troops will winter in Londinium, and I will know more of King Wesc and his will for peace—and, in time, we will rid this city of evil."

  King Arthor and the Druids

  Before departing Maiden Castle, King Arthor honored the request of the Druids to meet with their supreme hieros at midday in the airy and elegant temple of the goddess Aradia. Atop an altar of black obsidian stone within the blue marble temple erected by the Romans three centuries earlier, the Druids had draped red ivy and a crisp, golden mass of mistletoe.

  "Do you know the significance of this, sire?" the cowled hieros asked, pulling back the sleeves of his green and white robes to pass his hands over the altar of rough-hewn stone without disturbing the plants arrayed there. His jowly face watched impassively from under his hood, milky eyes attentive.

  "Ivy spirals for the sun, searching for God." Arthor saw the surprise in the old Druid's stare and went on, "Twelfth letter of the Ogham, eleventh month of the year, it is called Gort. The mistletoe is not of the tree alphabet. It is the mystery of All Heal. This I have learned from the Ovate, the doctor of learning, that my stepfather, Lord Kyner, retained at White Thorn for those of his people not yet won to the love of our Savior."

  A calm smile opened in the aged face of the hieros. "It is good you know something of the old ways, for I have summoned you here to reveal to you the ultimate secret of our kindred faith."

  "I am a Christian king, Lord Druid." Arthor spoke slowly, to be certain the old man understood. "Our faith is not kindred."

  "Oh, but it is, sire." The hieros' clouded eyes gleamed merrily. "That is the ultimate secret. And now that you are king of the Celtic clans of both Lord Lot and Lord Urien, I am free to declare before you the truth of our kindred faith—that what you call Christian, the Faith of the Anointed One, is the Ancient Faith that the Druids preserve."

  "My faith is the salvation offered by Jesus Christ."

  "A Hebrew." The hieros drew back the hood from his long locks of thinning gray hair. "We Druids are a priestly caste descended from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem—the very temple razed by the Babylonians five hundred and eighty-six years before the birth of the Anointed One, at a time when the Celtic empire touched the holy lands. We share a faith with the Hebrews. The Anointed One, Yesu, is a Celtic savior prophesied by our seers since the age of Solomon's Temple. He is the All Heal symbolized by the mistletoe. On the rare oak where this plant grows, our people mark a cross and carve the branch with the name All Heal, which in our language is Yesu! And behold our temples—not this Roman edifice, but the shrines we have built with our own hands. They are constructed, like this obsidian altar, of unhewn stone. Hu Gadarn Hyscion—Hu the Mighty, who led our people to Britain—Mighty Hu was a descendant of Abraham. He continued the ancient practice of carving our altars from unhewn stone as has been recorded in Exodus chapter twenty, verse twenty-five: "And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it." The Bible holds many of our Druidic truths. The desert prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah refer to the corning messiah as "the Branch." We teach, as well, that our deliverer is the Branch—the All Heal ... "

  Arthor stopped him by leaning forward across the altar. "As your king, I accept your faith descended of Abraham and the times before. I will not impede your religion as the Romans did. Know this, hieros. The messiah has come. The old ways are superseded by the new. My Savior declares in His own words, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." His is the way that I will follow."

  The Druid nodded sagely. "That is as it should be, sire. Yesu is indeed the way—the All Heal of resurrection. But remember this, wise king: The way is the way—and not the destination."

  []

  Mother Mary, my role as king continues to bring me into conflict with all that I have learned as a child about our faith from the priests. The hieros insists the Druids are Hebrews. I have asked Bedevere to summon me a Hebrew, a rabbi from the synagogue at Sorbiodunum, that I may converse with him and test these notions of the hieros. You are a Hebrew, Mother Mary. Your Son is a Hebrew. The very center of my spiritual life is informed by Judaism; so, why am I distrustful of the hieros' claim? The rabbi whom Merlin summoned is equally skeptical though not outright hostile to the idea. Indeed, the Celts were in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon's temple. Indeed, the Druids' forest shrines are built of unhewn stone as the old books of the Bible decree. Indeed, the Messiah that the prophets foretold is referred to by them as the Branch—as is the Celtic yesu, the all-heal, the mistletoe. Other than confirming what the hieros told me, I've learned nothing new. Should I pursue this knowledge? Bedevere tells me I am too young. First, I must attend to unifying my kingdom. Later, he says, I may pursue the mysteries of the angels and the demons—and of God. But for now, there is practical work to be done. I am no priest, no philosopher of the Church. Yet, I have seen enough in my short life to know that there is more to this world than the Church reveals. Guide me, Mother of God, to the knowledge I need to rule wisely.

  Cei's Travels

  Cei shaved his head, donned a hempen cassock, and rode east disguised as an itinerant monk. To allay his fears of the enchantress he had volunteered to find and return to her husband, Lord Lot gave him a talisman woven from locks of hair shorn from the heads of Morgeu's sons, Gawain and Gareth. He traveled alone. Though King Arthor had pleaded with him to take an escort of guardsmen, Cei believed he could travel faster on his own.

  He followed the Roman roads north and reached Aquae Sulis in time to celebrate Christmas in the steaming public baths with several courtesans and a flagon of vintage wine. He was not eager to find Morgeu and gladly indulged his carnal desires on his first long journey away from home alone.

  With a throbbing head and a much lightened coin purse, he continued north through a peaceful and well-Romanized countryside: vineyards pruned and shrouded in hay-sheaves for winter, bare orchards neatly arrayed upon undulant hillsides, and numerous villas, where he was welcomed as a holy man and compelled to participate in baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

  With the offerings given him for these services, Cei pursued his pleasures in the magisterial city of Corinium. He freighted more fear of Morgeu than he had realized when he rode with the army—fearful of what enchantment she might place on him—and he determined to take what pleasures he could from life before facing the witchy sister of his king.

  Outside Corinium's gates, he doffed his monk's cassock and entered as a warrior seeking his recreation. He enjoyed the New Year games at the city amphitheatre, doubling his earnings at the cock fights and squandering it all at the taverns and public baths, enjoying the finest local vintages and comestibles and the ardent attentions of the city's bawdries. In his drunken attempt to win more coin for more pleasures, he lost his horse and his sword.

  All resources spent and the days growing colder, Cei departed Corinium on foot with another pounding headache and only a rusk of rye bread for provision. He wandered east for several days, seeing only charcoal burners and salt peddlers on the cold, damp roads, all of whom demanded his blessing, which he gave begrudgingly for a tinder and a salt lick.

  With the first flurries of snow, he found spoor that prickled his flesh. A wildwood gang had jumped a woodcutter and left him mutilated by his own ax among a cairn of rocks. The man was not yet dead, and the bloody trail of the gang still fresh. Cei knelt beside the mortally wounded woodcutter and prayed with him until he died gurgling blood. The unarmed warrior buried the corpse under the cairn rocks, constantly flicking glances over his shoulder for the return of the murderers.

  Anno Domini 491

  The new year entered bitterly cold and gray. Wildwood gangs, desperate for warmth and food, stepped up their attacks against isolated villas and est
ates, and the king's army proceeded slowly through the lands of the Belgae, fanning out to assert Arthor's influence among all the many hamlets and thorps of the rambling countryside.

  Endless small skirmishes occupied the royal forces within the dense forests and no help came from the east. Futilely, Arthor dispatched messengers to the magister militum Severus Syrax as well as to the elite forces of Bors Bona.

  The self-proclaimed king of the Belgae, Gorthyn, had risen from the ranks of the brigands that roamed the land plundering farms, and he sat silently in his redstone citadel at Cunetio, declaring neither allegiance nor opposition to the young king. Every legate that Arthor dispatched to petition King Gorthyn for help vanished. At last, the monarch decided to go himself.

  "Have you learned nothing from the deaths of your personal guard at Maiden Castle?" Kyner complained, confronting his step-son as Arthor doffed his gold chaplet and polished corselet of brass strips. "You are our king. You jeopardize us all when you put yourself at risk. Listen to me as your war counselor if not as a father."

  "Where is your son, Cei?" Arthor asked sourly. "I sent him to face Morgeu the Fey in my place—and he is gone."

  Kyner shook his ruddy face. "I love my son with all my heart, but he is a warrior and lives and dies by the sword. Once you were such—but no longer. As king you must live for your people."

  "Cunetio is two days' ride on the Roman road," said Arthor, pulling a tattered tunic over his leather cuirasse. "I will return before your work is done clearing these woods of brigands."

  Wearing garments taken from the wildwood gangs, Arthor and thirty volunteers galloped north. Only Bedevere dressed as usual, in his gleaming bronze helmet crested with red-dyed horse bristles and his shining breastplates and buckler; on this mission, he bore a long scimitar at his side.