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

by A. A. Attanasio

  "You are a poet." Arthor rubbed his sore wrists and recited, "It is an hour before winter — I have found my way here — to the dreams of wolves — the stillness in which words give up — their unfinished voices ... That is all I remember. Words worthy of song."

  "I am duly impressed, Arthor." Wesc stroked his long ginger beard. "How do you know my poetry?"

  "You write sacred poetry." Arthor hesitated, then sighed to admit, "I've heard those lines many times. Your berserkers sing them as they die."

  "Yes, of course. That is a warrior's death song." Wesc nodded sadly. "I myself have no love of war. Unlike my fellow kings among the Foederatus—Cruithni of the Picts, Esc of the Jutes, Ulfin of the Angles—I have never killed anyone with my own hands. There is no hallowed place awaiting me in the Hall of the Battle-Slain. And you, who have slain many men, are scorned for that by your God. Thou shalt not kill. And of course: He who lives by the sword shall die by it. Your Savior is the Prince of Peace. Is it not odd that both of us are kings who disappoint our gods? In this, we are brothers."

  Arthor could think of no more proper reply than to state the obvious, "I have fought battles and killed men to defend my land."

  "And I will take that land from you, as my gods command, for the good use of my people. Even as your faith teaches that the meek shall inherit the earth, my faith directs that the strong must strive and the weak be overcome. We serve opposite beliefs in opposite ways." Wesc laughed heartily and slapped Arthor on the back. "Come. Your future is pre-doomed. Soon enough, all of Britain shall become the kingdom of Saxons and Angles. My gods have shown me this, and I know that what they have revealed is true. So, hopeless one, I will now take you to the boat that will return you to your people."

  "Return me?" Arthor straightened with incomprehension. "Why?"

  Wesc cocked his head as if the answer were obvious. "There is no better enemy for me than you, Arthor." He laughed deeply again. "You are not established sufficiently for me to command any realistic ransom. You have not even won the pledges of your island's largest city. My only recourse is to kill you. I could not bear to lose you so early in our contest. Come along. On the way, I will recite to you the latest of my poems."

  Songs without Singers

  King Arthor, when he came to the camp of the Britons north of Londinium, could have risen directly from the underworld, he appeared to the sentinels that abruptly out of the vesperal mists. The guards, who found him strolling through the evening woods where King Wesc's silent Wolf Warriors had conveyed him, cheered mightily. Bedevere, Cei, and Merlin came running through the cooking fires, their faces wrought with worry.

  The young king allayed their fears with a broad smile and a mighty embrace for each, as much astonished as they to be alive. With good cheer that dispelled all the sorrow and recriminations that had previously occupied the campsite, the British warriors escorted their king among the tents to the central fire and the commanders' pavilion.

  A stranger with a head of red curls bent over the map table where Lord Monkey squatted among the scrolls. At his side stood Eufrasia, smiling adoringly.

  The arrival of the king lifted Aidan and Marcus from their seats, and they knelt. They had hurried south to coordinate the advance of the army into Londinium, leaving Kyner in command of the north. Lot had returned there with Morgeu and their sons to assist.

  Arthor accepted the warm greetings and fealty of those in attendance and gazed with disbelief at Dagonet. "You cannot be the same man I lost at Camelot!"

  "I am, sire—and I've a miraculous tale to prove it!"

  The tales of the king and his party went on long into that night. And when all was told, remarked upon and marveled at, and all at last departed to their individual tents, Merlin alone sat in the umber light of the fading fire. He stared deep into the tearings and rendings of light. In one hand, he absently turned the diamond taken from the Dragon's pelf, the gem that currently served to house the soul of Gorlois.

  Briefly, he considered tossing the gem into the flames and being done with Morgeu's incestuous child and this vengeful soul. Greater than the admonishment of the Nine Queens, the memory of his mother stayed him. Saint Optima had often quoted him her favorite passage of the Bible, from Matthew 5:45: "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

  For now, Morgeu's evil had been stalled. Until the king's authority was firmly acknowledged by all, he did not wish to provoke the enchantress further. The hope that her unholy child might yet live offered the wizard some small control over her.

  Merlin pocketed the diamond, exhaled a long weary breath, and wrapped himself more snugly in his robe against the chill night. He missed Rex Mundi. Living so close to a Fire Lord, he had never been cold even in the depths of winter. And for once in his aeonial experience, a demon and an angel had worked together, albeit only briefly and with a pitiless love.

  He lifted his eyes from the dying flames to the clear night sky. How rare the light in the dark of creation, he mulled. How rare the stars scattered in the void of heaven. For all their billions and thousands of billions, the dark—it ranges far vaster yet. How rare the light, journeying centuries, millennia, aeons through darkness, untouched by aught else, alone, unseen, forever unknown, these songs without singers.

  Part Four: Spring

  Warriors of the Round Table

  Mother Mary, Mass has been said to celebrate the happy return of my brother Cei and our wizard Merlin. And I kneel here among these blossoming poplars, one of our Father's private chapels, to thank you personally. Since his return, Cei behaves with ever more deference around me, quieter than before. In our boy days, I would have known from his nervous silence that he withholds a secret. Having heard the tale of his journey to hell, to our Britain of a nightmare yet to come, I am afraid for him. Merlin's and Dagonet's accounts of Rex Mundi are fantastic enough. What Cei reports—that bespeaks a more painful strangeness. Perhaps the devil has haunted him with broken dreams of our struggle. To think that our blood is spilled in fighting for a future realm of dark mills and sour skies, that the sweetness of the land itself should be lost ... Mother Mary, that is madness.

  The Blood Pool

  In a ploughed field full of early sun, Morgeu and Lot strolled together. The king's soldiers stood small in the distance outside a thatched farmhouse, waiting for their horses, which the farmer had tended overnight. Lot kicked at a clod of earth, annoyed. "Why were you in Verulamium, wife? Why did you leave our estates?"

  Morgeu, exhausted from her journey through the underworld, lacked the power to enthrall her husband yet again. She also knew that lying would be difficult, with Cei blathering to everyone about what he had experienced in the nether kingdom. "I went to save the soul in my womb. Lailoken had snatched it from me, and I reclaimed the chapel at Verulamium for a shrine to Hela."

  Lot, who wore a bearskin cloak over his bare shoulders, looked aged in the great fur, his face shrunken amidst hair flowing free and white as a cloud. "Your rivalry with Merlin must end."

  The enchantress clung to her husband's hide-covered arm. "He threatens the life I carry, for he fears our child will challenge his upstart Arthor."

  "Cei tells all that you have placed your father's soul in your womb." Lot's white eyebrows knitted. "Is this so?"

  "Lailoken killed my father on the plains of Londinium." Morgeu packed her voice with hurt sorrow. "I want him back."

  Lot enclosed her in his bearskin. "What of our sons? If you carry Gorlois back to this life, will he not challenge them?"

  "Each soul has a private destiny, husband—this you know." From a pocket of her scarlet robes, she removed the talismans of shorn hair. "I faced Hela herself to save our sons. Their destinies are safe from the life I will bring back to this world. Only Merlin and his puppet king need fear the return of Gorlois."

  "That puppet king is our king, wife. I have given my pledge."

  "And have I dishonored your pledge?" Morgeu pressed herself against
Lot and felt the weariness in him. "All I have done is redeem a loss I suffered at the hands of the demon Lailoken. Am I to be blamed for wanting my father to live again—and for having the skill to bring him once more to the light?"

  Lot held her close to him, glad for her strength, for the rageful fire of her will. "You have my blessing in all that you do, wife. If you summoned the Furor himself to your womb, I would yet stand by you. There must be no more secrecy between us. I will not again learn from Cei or any other what transpires with you." He stopped walking and turned her in his arms so that his gray eyes touched her dark stare. "There was a vampyre at Verulamium. No such unclean creatures must come near our sons."

  "Why do you think I did my sacred work at Hela's shrine so far from our estates, dear husband?" She put her hands to the sides of his face and spoke earnestly. "I love you and our sons with all that I am. You are a chieftain and I an enchantress. You must spill blood to preserve our lives. And I—sometimes I must dip my hand into that blood pool to keep our lives whole."

  War Spirits

  Bors Bona entered the throne room of the governor's palace at Londinium with a proud gait, shoulders squared beneath his polished bronze cuirass, bared head high. He neither bowed nor nodded to the magister militum, who slouched upon his marble perch with his kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed. "Who has authorized the mobilization of my troops?" asked Bors Bona.

  "Why, I did, of course." Severus Syrax cast a slow, sidelong look to where Count Platorius stood almost wholly out of sight among the silk draperies behind the throne.

  The count, bedecked in a fleece riding coat trimmed with black fox, stepped forward. The dark pouches under his eyes twitched to behold Bors Bona's ire.

  "Arthor has refused all our entreaties for peace," Syrax continued. "He turns his forces west, back toward Merlin's citadel at Camelot. I believe he intends to cross through the lands of the Atrebates, very seriously destabilizing our dear count's realm. You saw the mindless joy that the rabble took in receiving him to Londinium. We must prevent that from happening to our western ally."

  "Only I may mobilize my troops, Syrax."

  "You have been my guest these many weeks, Bors, and have I once issued complaint that your army indulged too heavily in my storehouses of grain, my byres of livestock, my palace wine cellars, my city's bordellos?" Severus Syrax spoke softly, not stirring from his relaxed posture. "You have enjoyed free access to all the luxuries of Londinium. And now, I merely assert my authority as the city's magister militum to defend us from an enemy by mobilizing troops that I have fed and housed through a harsh winter."

  "Unless you intend to ride with us into the field, you must leave the command of my troops to me."

  The magister militum lowered his hands from his face and sat up straight. "I am glad that you see my authority extending to the field—for I intend to ride out and confront this young warmonger with our united forces. Arthor will quail once he sees unified against him the might of Bors Bona, Count Platorius, the magister militum, and the Foederatus."

  Bors Bona rocked back on his heels. "The Foederatus?"

  "Certainly. King Wesc has agreed to bolster our ranks with Wolf Warriors. Think of it, Bors—this arrogant tyrant opposed by Christian and pagan troops united under a Foederatus banner."

  "What?" Bors Bona stepped back a pace as if struck. "My troops will not serve the invaders!"

  "Not invaders, Bors. These are our allies now. Through the Foederatus, our island will enjoy safe trade routes again with all the empires to the south, from Trier and Troyes to Rome itself."

  Nodding and smiling, Count Platorius stepped forward and broke his observant silence to add, "This is a new era of peace, Bors. First we must exorcise the war spirits of the past. Without you, those spirits will make Arthor high king of Britain, and we will remain isolated from the rest of the world while savage tribes harry us from all sides. Now is our chance to end tyranny and isolation. Ride with us and surely Britain will take its place in a modern age of trade and commerce."

  Spring at Stonehenge

  Bors Bona's army, bolstered by Foederatus Wolf Warriors, the armies of the magister militum, and Count Platorius intimidated King Arthor. Fighting invaders suited him far better than spilling the blood of the very people he sought to rule.

  When Marcus and Kyner descended from the north with the main body of the royal forces, the king sent trains of empty wagons west, misleading his opponents into believing that he intended to take Platorius' lands of the Atrebates by force. As soon as the massive army united under Severus Syrax departed Londinium and positioned themselves in the west to confront him, he turned his army directly south.

  King Arthor crossed the River Tamesis at Pontes, burning bridges and barges behind to dissuade Syrax from following. Then, he led his troops swiftly westward, thus circumventing a clash between the two factions. By the first day of spring, the equibalance of day and night, his army camped on the wide plains of the Belgae territory in sight of the circle of bluestone dolmens called Stonehenge.

  Egrets, plovers, small birds flashed into the golden sky as Merlin and King Arthor came striding through the bracken and stood at the edge of the grassy ditch before the earthwork enclosing the standing stones. "Who built these monuments, Merlin?" the boy marveled.

  "Are you so confident of the moment that you have leisure to contemplate the far past, sire?" Merlin stepped down the bank to its flat bottom and looked up with an unhappy expression on his craggy face. "By skirting Syrax, you merely avoid the inevitable, you realize. He will stalk us to Camelot."

  The king scampered down the slope and up the other side of the chalk-rubble ditch, brushing past Merlin with a huffy laugh and playfully snatching his conical hat. "You sound like one of my warlords instead of my wizard."

  "You must take a stand against Syrax." Merlin climbed the embankment and followed the young king, who skipped over the small pits that penetrated the earth at regular intervals. "The longer you delay, the stronger grows his alliance with the Foederatus. They will take the east of your kingdom—all the lowlands."

  Arthor pushed through brittle cane grass remaining from the prior summer and stepped into the circle of tall stones. "I cannot bring myself to spill the blood of those under my protection."

  "Then you intend to win their fealty by strenuous argument, sire?" Merlin trampled the canes and retrieved his hat from Arthor's head as the king stood running his hands over the dressed stone of spotted dolerite. "Syrax and Platorius are disinclined to listen. The trade-profits that King Wesc promises them speak louder than anything you could say."

  Still caressing the cold texture of the ritual rock, Arthor replied, "It is Bors I hope to convince. If we can win him to our order, Syrax and Platorius will have to capitulate."

  "I respect you for your willingness to avoid bloodshed, sire. I must warn you, deferred evil is nourished evil. The longer you delay, the greater the final battle—and the more likely that all we are striving to build will be lost."

  []

  Mother Mary, in a hundred years, none of us living now will be here. The houses that we live in fall apart and are gone. Forests collapse and grow tall again. The unimaginable awaits us. And still, the priests and the Druids dare imagine for us holy heaven, hell's perdition, the drift of souls across the edge of time, journeying from lifetime to lifetime. Is any of this true? Even my faith in you, dear Mother Mary, even my faith in you is just that —faith. What is true? What can be true among flesh and shadow? Oh, please, I beg you, blessed Mother, show me mercy! Though I question all that I am, including our love, I know that in a hundred years, a thousand years, the mountains will not exhaust themselves, and people's faith in you will endure. I question only myself and what is mine. Merlin and my commanders demand that I attack Severus Syrax. How dare I raise my hand against my own people—the very lives I am sworn to serve and protect? Such hypocrisy is as wicked as Morgeu's deception of me. Am I king—or am I just another warlord? Mercy or power, which should guide my hand? />
  White Arrows

  At Aquae Sulis, the king's army bivouacked for several days. They relished the baths and laded their wagons with supplies for the long march north into the hill country and to Camelot.

  Among the tributes that Arthor had received from the cities he had rescued from the Riders of the North Wind, he favored a reed sheath of white arrows. A Persian mirza exiled from his homeland had gifted this exotic quiver to the laird of Greta Bridge who in turn had given it to Arthor. Each of the seven arrows possessed a silver head, an ivory shaft, and platinum fletch vanes thin as feathers.

  Merlin summoned Dagonet to the king's suite where the arrows lay spread upon a dark table so heavily oiled that the shafts reflected perfectly in the black mahogany. The wizard bid the tall man of red curls to sit in a chair upholstered with auburn horsehair. "You have the Fire Lord's light in your blood and bones, Dagonet. You are as magical a being as I."

  "Nary as wise, Merlin—or as powerful," Dagonet responded with a ready and burdenless smile. His ethereal beauty enthralled men as well as women: a beatific, almost supernatural aura emanated from his eyes of icy depths. His high-boned face of tall brow and confident chin met the world guileless, and his soft-swollen lips, almost hurt-looking, inspired absolute trust and, when parted in a smile, love.

  Merlin himself had to look away. He fixed upon the small beast clinging to the mane of red curls. Lord Monkey leaped from Dagonet's shoulder onto the glossy table and circled the strewn arrows. "Since we've come free of Rex Mundi," the beautiful man continued, "I've struggled to earn my way in the king's army with skills no longer easy to me. My tumbling and juggling lack grace—and my wit has lost its edge."