“No. You will die here and join your friend on the tree.”
Both men swung their horses about and rode to opposite ends of the mount. There was little space for fighting on horseback, so they dismounted and tethered their mounts. With a final glance at Swyno, Peredur turned to meet his enemy. They advanced slowly towards each other. Both crouched behind their round shields, large enough to protect the body and upper legs.
Peredur’s heart pounded. His hand was slick with sweat on the haft of his light throwing spear. This was his first real fight away from the drill-ground at Caerleon. He knew it would be to the death. His opponent was somewhat taller, and much more lightly built. Peredur tried to ignore his fear and concentrate on the task at hand. He reversed his spear, ready for the throw.
The man in black was quicker. He streaked forward, leaped, and cast his spear in a smooth overarm throw. Peredur failed to get his shield up in time. The wickedly pointed tip drove between the links of his ring-mail and sank into the leather tunic and undershirt beneath, pinking the flesh of his collarbone. Warm blood coursed down his chest. Peredur dropped his own spear to wrench the thing out of his flesh and throw it away. He had barely done so when the other man was upon him, screaming a war-cry, sword darting like a serpent’s tongue at Peredur’s face and throat. He gave ground, shield raised in both hands. Splinters rose from the linden wood as his opponent hacked relentlessly against it. This lethal dance continued for some time, Peredur retreating in circles as the man in black chopped frenziedly at the shield.
Occasionally he got through. His sword’s edge dashed and scraped against ring-mail, or bit into Peredur’s unprotected legs. Soon the beaten grass of the arena was speckled with blood.
He wastes breath and strength. His anger has carried him away.
Hope flared inside Peredur. He took heart, remembered his training, and brought his enormous strength and endurance into play. His wounds might have weakened a lesser man. To him they were trifling and caused no real pain or loss of stamina. Mere flea-bites.
At last Peredur grew tired of being on the defensive. He put his head down, like an angry bull, and thrust his tattered shield at the other man’s face. The iron boss smashed into his nose. He staggered backwards. Blood sheeted down the underside of his mask and dripped from his chin.
“Never give the other bastard time to recover! Stay on his heels, put him down! Kick his legs from under him, boot him in the groin, put your fingers in his eyes – I don’t care how you do it, just put him down!”
These words, screamed by the swordmaster on the training ground at Caerleon, flamed in Peredur’s memory. He tore out his sword and went after the man in black, unleashing a cut at his head, powerful enough to split him in two.
Though dazed and bleeding, his enemy’s snake-like reflexes were still intact. He leaped aside, overbalanced, rolled his ankle. Somehow he stayed on his feet and retreated, crouched well below his shield.
It was Peredur’s turn to attack. He drove his enemy up the side of the mount, towards the lodge, cutting and bludgeoning at the upraised shield with tremendous force. Splinters flew in all directions as he forced the other man back. The single blue eye, visible through the black mask, shone with fear and desperation. Peredur snarled in triumph and redoubled his efforts, hell-bent on breaking the shield all to pieces. For once he was quick, and fought with an intensity that matched his terrible strength. Peredur laughed at the thought of his old drillmasters, who had cursed his sluggishness in training. If only they could watch him now!
The man’s injured leg was unable to sustain the force of Peredur’s blows. It gave way under him like a rotten twig. He collapsed onto his back and squealed in terror, all his bravado melted away. Peredur’s monstrous shadow loomed over him.
“Have mercy!” the fallen man begged. “Don’t kill me, please! I am nothing—I am nobody—I am not worth dirtying your blade!”
Peredur stood poised, ready to drive his sword into his foe’s heart. “No mercy for traitors and murderers,” he rasped through gritted teeth, “but I will make it quick, if you tell me who you are, and why you chose this course. Why should a warrior, if he has any pride at all, stoop to living alone in the forest like a hunted thief? Is that what you are? Did you steal that fine sword?”
The man in black did not reply. Some of the fear went out of his eye, which had previously bulged with terror. Baffled, Peredur waited for him to speak.
“No,” came the reply at last. “I won’t tell you my name. It was lost, long ago, along with my honour, lands, wealth and family. All gone. I have your High King, your beloved Artorius, to thank for that. Artorius the law-giver, the fount of justice, the breaker of good men, who makes a desert and calls it peace.”
His bloodied teeth bared in a grin.
“You will learn, boy. One day, you will learn. Now, make an end. I’m tired and want to go.” Peredur hesitated. For a moment, he experienced a flicker of pity. Then he remembered Swyno, butchered and hung upside down like a side of beef. He wrapped both hands round the hilt of his sword and plunged it down into the masked man’s breast.
Later, Peredur rode slowly through the forest. He continued to follow the road east, though in truth cared little for his destination. The duel with the man in black, his first kill, replayed over and over in his head.
The man’s face, he knew, would haunt his sleep for weeks to come. After killing him, Peredur had ripped off the mask and gazed down at the features of his victim: a ghastly pale complexion, thin and scarred, one eye missing – plucked out in some ancient fight – and the empty socket sealed over with livid red flesh. The dead man was close-shaven. Even though reduced to a forest bandit, he still possessed some dregs of pride. The deep lines scored into his brow, the corners of his mouth and eyes, spoke eloquently of a bitter and wasted existence.
Peredur’s shock at killing for the first time was mixed with guilt. He should have cut Swyno down and buried him. Instead, desperate to get away from that nightmarish glade, he left both men as food for wolves. Swyno’s dead eyes would also haunt his nightmares, staring at Peredur in mute accusation.
Sword-brother. Companion. Comrade. You betrayed me. Deserted me.
These unhappy thoughts occupied Peredur as he journeyed slowly east, letting his horse plod along at her own pace. The eerily silent forest clustered around him as the road narrowed, broken down in places, and finally dwindled to a mere track. At some point, he had crossed the invisible frontier into the Debated Land.
Peredur cared little. His youthful desire for adventure was quelled, at least for the moment, and the prospect of Saxons filled him with neither fear nor excitement. He had witnessed death. Let it come, or not.
The deep forest gradually thinned out as Peredur entered the hill country. Shortly after noon, the heavy grey skies darkened, and light rain swept the desolate hills and valleys. Peredur journeyed on, alone in the wilderness.
A broad stretch of empty moor opened before him, flanked by woodland. Peredur halted to examine the landscape. Soon night would come on, and he faced the dismal prospect of sleeping in the open in bad weather.
His sharp eyes picked out a twist of smoke, rising into the sky above a swathe of woodland to the northeast. Some lonely woodsman’s hut, perhaps. Peredur prayed it was free of plague. He shook out his reins and urged his tired horse into a canter across the moor.
Firelight glimmered through the belt of trees ahead of him. Ever wary, Peredur dismounted and crept slowly towards the light, sword in hand. The pungent smell of wood-smoke filled his nostrils, mingled with roasting deer flesh. His mouth watered. A cut of fresh venison would be far preferable to the hard cheese and bread in his knapsack.
He glimpsed shadows around the fire. Human figures, silent as the grave. Light-headed with hunger and exhaustion, Peredur thought he heard distant singing. Female voices. The words were indistinct, but the melody was repetitive and insistent, a sequence of meaningless noises, pounding to the quickened rhythm of his heart. His view
of the flames was suddenly blotted out. Peredur’s horse whickered in fright and he almost dropped his sword.
Before him, as though sprouted from the ground, stood a woman. She was young, slender and black-haired, her face sharp and freckled, soft grey eyes glinting with amusement under heavy lids. The girl wore a black smock, tied at the waist with a belt of iron links, and wore a thin iron band in her hair.
“Welcome, Peredur,” she said in a lilting accent, stretching out her bare arms towards him. “You can rest now.”
The singing roared inside Peredur’s skull, accompanied by the thunder of drums. He swayed on his feet, took a step closer to the girl, and plunged into darkness.
7.
Medraut rode west from Llandaff. A few young Companions, consumed with admiration for the new Magister Militum, asked to ride with him. They were disappointed.
“Every man on this quest chooses his own road,” Medraut said brusquely. “I choose to go alone.”
He gave the youths an encouraging smile. “Never fear. One day we shall ride to war together, and I shall be proud to lead you.”
After sowing these seeds, Medraut struck out. He followed the highway into Deheubarth, crowded with refugees from the Yellow Plague. Entire families straggled west, their worldly goods packed up and loaded aboard wagons and oxen. Some were from Caerleon, where the High King had already given orders for the city to be emptied. Those who refused to leave their homes were forced out at swordpoint. Artorius took no chances.
Medraut cantered along the side of the highway, one of the many old Roman roads his father had repaired and made useable again. Some of the refugees blessed him as he passed, or begged him to stay and protect them. They were heading into unknown country, full of potential dangers. There was no guarantee the sub-kings of Deheubarth and Dyfed would allow the refugees to enter their lands, though Artorius had sent envoys instructing them to do so.
How many of these vermin carry plague? Medraut thought idly as he rode past the shambling horde of peasants and civilians. They will spread the disease all over Britannia. We cannot rely on bits of holy timber to protect us.
To his mind, there was only one safeguard against the Yellow Plague. Fire and slaughter. Every town and village east of Caerleon should be burnt, every refugee driven away or killed, their bodies put to the flames or dumped inside mass grave pits, far away from the living. Artorius was not strong enough to adopt these measures. Instead he pretended to care for the wellbeing of his people.
He is either weak or deluded. Perhaps both. His decisions threaten to condemn us all. The strong must thrive at the expense of the weak. It is our only hope of survival.
Still, Medraut was grateful for his father’s mistakes. They offered him the opportunity he had craved, ever since he returned from the East. Six long years, pretending to be his father’s dutiful son and loyal servant. Obeying his orders, smiling at his demands, slogging up and down the Godforsaken frontier of the Debated Land. Killing Saxons when he would rather make allies of them. There was no future in waging perpetual war against Cerdic’s folk. They were more numerous than the Britons now, and held more territory. Mount Badon, his father’s greatest victory, merely delayed the inevitable. Medraut saw this, but Artorius was too stubborn. Too proud. Too old.
Medraut pressed on, convinced only he could save his people and his country. Only he was fit to wear the crown of the High King, to steer the fate of Britannia. Llacheu, his father’s intended successor, was a mere slave to the old man’s misguided ideals. Brother or no, Llacheu would have to be dealt with.
Soon Medraut delved into wild country. He had journeyed through the west before, and had a route planned. Trekking through the forests was a risk, but a calculated one. It was vital nobody should follow him or realise where he was headed.
At least his father offered him one benefit. Medraut was amused by the irony. Under Artorius, the forests of Britannia had been mostly cleared of bands of outlaws and broken men. A few still lurked in the uttermost depths of the wilderness, sometimes emerging to prey on lone travellers. Medraut had no fear of them, or the monsters, trolls, serpents and other hellspawn rumoured to dwell in rivers and caves. A trained fighting man, who had seen much of the world and its horrors, did not jump at imagined goblins in the dark.
After two nights of travel, sleeping in the open, Medraut turned northwest towards the coast of Dyfed. His rations were almost gone, so he kicked down the door of a lonely shepherd’s hut he encountered on a stretch of empty moorland. Inside was a single round chamber, dark and deserted. There was no fire in the hearth, just a pile of scattered grey ash.
Medraut entered, sword in hand, and spied a platter of soft white cheese and a lump of hard bread on the shelf. He ate his fill, stuffed the rest into his satchel for later, and refilled his flask from a barrel of ale next to the shelf. The sour, watery taste of the ale made him wince.
“Peasant’s piss,” he snarled, wiping his mouth. It would have to do. He left the hut and rode on. Shortly after dawn the next day he reached the coast. Gulls wheeled overhead, the salt tang of the sea filled his nostrils, and the land before him swept down to a small fishing village on the cusp of the sea. In the far distance, just visible to the naked eye, lay the coast of Hibernia.
* * *
“Prince Medraut,” drawled the Scotti chieftain sprawled in the high chair, “or should I call you King?”
Medraut ignored the mocking tone.
“One day you shall,” he replied patiently, “and have no cause to regret it.”
The other man smirked. This was Cathair, King of Laigin. He put Medraut in mind of a great cat; tall and sinewy, his lithe frame lounged comfortably on the wolf skin draped over his chair, raised high on the dais of his round hall. The king was in his prime, thirty or thereabouts, handsome and muscular. He wore his coppery brown hair short, shaved his chin and sported a drooping moustache. His brow and upper arms were adorned with torcs, twisting bands of gold in the shape of serpents swallowing their own tails.
Medraut stood before the royal dais on a rug of silvery grey sealskin. Otherwise the round hall was empty. Cathair had ordered everyone out while he spoke in private to his guest. Because he was a prudent king, a pair of his Ceithernn stood guard behind the dais. These two, burly spearmen with scarred faces, watched Medraut’s every move with deep suspicion.
Cathair rested his chin on his fist and gazed down at his guest. He was a man of uncomfortably long silences. Medraut had enough experience of kings and emperors to know this was a deliberate strategy, intended to make others feel vulnerable in the royal presence. He waited patiently and strove to hide his contempt for this puffed-up little kinglet and his damp wooden palace, reeking of dung and wood smoke and rotting meat, hidden away among the bogs of southeast Hibernia.
I have walked the gilded halls and corridors of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople, Medraut thought angrily, and stood in the presence of the Emperor Zeno, who praised my courage in battle. Now I must bow and simper and beg favours from a barbarian princeling who talks to me as though I were a halfwit or a slave. The meanest provincial Roman governor wouldn’t set foot in this sty. God, how the place reeks!
Medraut smothered his indignation. Patience, he reminded himself. Cathair, and others like him, were mere tools.
Finally Cathair broke the silence. “Give me one good reason,” he drawled, stroking his moustache, “why I should not clap you in chains and send you back to Artorius? You have spoken enough treason to condemn you many times over, even if you are his son.”
Because you’re an ambitious little turd who dreams of lording it over the other petty chiefs of this stinking island.
“You threaten me with chains, lord king,” Medraut replied smoothly, “yet you are the one who labours under their weight. You are my father’s bonded slave, as surely as if you laboured in his fields. Every year he demands tribute from Laigin. Iron, slaves, grain, weapons, cattle. All you can give. He bleeds your kingdom, leaving you weak and powe
rless. Is this not so?”
There was little need to ask the question. Ever since Artorius slew Odgar, Cathair’s father, and conquered the Scotti kingdoms of Laigin and Osraige, annual tribute had flowed across the sea to Caerleon. The High King used the extra supplies to bolster his military forces and keep the defeated kingdoms in a state of subjection. Cathair’s eyes glinted with anger. He sat upright and started to crack his knuckles in agitation. Medraut smiled inwardly at how easily the man was provoked.
“There is some truth in what you say,” Cathair admitted, “though I warn you to guard your tongue, Prince Medraut, for as long as you stay in Laigin. My people are a proud folk. We have no love of swaggering foreigners who come to remind us of our troubles.”
Medraut spread his hands. “Lord king, I offer you a chance to snap your chains. A way out of the slavery my father has imposed on you and the King of Osraige. Join me. Help me to overthrow Artorius. When I am High King in his place, I will levy no tribute on Hibernia. All I ask is you acknowledge my supremacy Otherwise I shall leave you be.”
The king snorted, and even his guards chuckled. “I said we were proud,” he replied, “not stupid. If I helped to set you on the throne of Britannia, you may prove an even worse tyrant than your accursed father.”
Medraut gave a shrug. “Your choice. Bind me with fetters, then, and put me on a ship for Caerleon. Remain a slave forever. My brother Llacheu will be the next High King. Don’t expect any favours from him. He is a hard man, and has plans to increase the tribute.”
This was a lie. Medraut knew next to nothing of how Llacheu meant to rule. His eldest brother was a quiet man, who kept his private thoughts to himself. He and Medraut had much in common, and Medraut often regretted the necessity of killing him. It might be possible to spare Llacheu’s life and force him to enter a monastery, as the Roman Emperors often did with their inconvenient kin. He would have to be blinded or gelded first. Perhaps both.
Another silence. Cathair chewed his bottom lip and stared at the back of his hands. They were swollen and scarred, with broken nails. The hands of a seasoned warrior. Medraut had heard tales of how Cathair rose to power. After the death of Odgar he had fought his brothers for the crown of Laigin, slew two in battle and the third in single combat. Knife to knife in the middle of a shield-ring, while their spearmen watched and cheered and laid wagers on the victor. Such a man would always choose to fight. Prefer death over slavery.
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