Medraut

by David Pilling

  10.

  Months passed before the survivors of the Quest started to trickle home. Some alone, some in groups. All were changed men, bedraggled and exhausted, on foot or riding spindly horses. Wild-eyed, they spoke of miracles seen and experienced, of impossible wonders that may or may not have been the invention of their fractured minds. A few were crippled beyond repair, having lost limbs or eyes in battles against giants and monsters of every stamp. Or so they claimed. These men limped on staves, were carried in litters, or leaned on the shoulders of their comrades.

  Caerleon was still out of bounds, so Artorius received the survivors in the hall of the old villa he had requisitioned. Here he sat in his high chair and listened to the stories. Some were more lucid than others. The more pitiful cases were reduced to babbling lunacy, their minds completely overthrown by the horrors they had endured. Artorius took pity on these men, and blamed himself.

  He vented his guilt on Bishop Cadwy.

  “Find homes in your monasteries for these poor wretches,” Artorius shouted. “The Quest was your idea. Your monks can do something useful for once, and take care of the wounded. Brave men. I sent them to their ruin.”

  Cadwy bowed. “As you wish, lord king,” he replied with uncharacteristic humility. In recent weeks, he had lost weight, and cut a less aggressive and imposing figure than before.

  He knew it was a lie, Artorius thought cynically. The Quest was a sham driven by my son’s ambition. He hoped the Fragment would be found, so he could display it at Llandaff and send boastful letters to Rome. The most holy of relics, discovered in Britannia! Cadwy used me, and the blood of my men, to advance his prospects. I hope he is satisfied with the results.

  The Fragment had indeed been found. Or rather, fragments. So far, the Companions had brought back over a hundred bits of blessed wood. Each one was supposed to be the true Fragment – discovered in churches, bought from priests and wandering holy men, snatched from the bodies of dead warriors, or simply stolen. The Companions had roved far and wide to discover the blessed splinter, and fetched back enough timber to build the True Cross anew. Their finds now lay in a steadily growing heap on the altar of a small Christian church outside the villa. There was no obvious power in them. No holy light shone forth, no blessings from Heaven. The Yellow Plague continued to rage unabated, careless of the bravery and sacrifice of the Companions, or the massed prayers sent up by Cadwy’s priests. Cadwy’s Quest was a farce. The true Fragment might lie among those already discovered, might still be hidden, or might not exist at all. It was impossible to know.

  Yet there were plenty of hard facts for Artorius to digest. The sorry state of the returning Companions had filled his court with horror, especially since many of the injured men were young, with their lives ahead of them. Those lives were shattered forever now, along with their minds and bodies. Several who died on the Quest had been brought home, and rested inside freshly dug graves in the military cemetery outside Caerleon. Other dead Companions doubtless lay scattered about the countryside, food for worms and carrion-eaters.

  “Over half of those who rode off on the Quest have not returned,” said Artorius, “the best half. The most experienced fighters, most promising recruits.

  Cadwy fiddled with the heavy wooden crucifix about his neck. It had recently replaced the lighter silver cross, and he was bowed under its weight. Artorius wondered if he had also taken to scourging himself at night. The failure of the Quest weighed heavily upon Cadwy.

  “The Lord takes the best of mankind,” he said miserably, “and gathers them into His bosom.”

  “How generous of Him,” Artorius retorted. “God has seen fit to decimate my Companions. Instead of a company of sword-brothers, I am left with a rabble of cripples and madmen. For what? A heap of firewood! I may as well have sent them off to chase rainbows.”

  He dismissed Cadwy and called in another Companion to tell his tale. This one was barely twenty and leaned heavily on a crutch. Artorius winced. The youth had lost his left leg below the knee to some vicious blow. White-faced, he halted before the royal seat and mumbled out his story.

  “I went north, lord king, thinking to search the hill country of Powys.” “And what did you find?” asked the High King. The young man looked down in despair.

  “Nothing, save misery and death. The Yellow Plague has scarred the land. Poisoned the very earth. I saw piles of human dead, heaped up by their loved ones and burnt like sick livestock. I rode for days on end and saw no life. The farms and villages lie empty, the crops in the fields left to rot.

  “I fell foul of brigands,” he added, almost apologetically. “One cut off my leg with a scythe. They laughed and spat on me, took my horse, and left me to die.”

  Artorius swore. With so few left to till the land, the harvest was almost certain to fail. This meant famine, the inevitable child of plague. Come the winter, Britannia may well cease to exist as a kingdom. His realm would devolve into a wasteland, thinly populated here and there by a few isolated settlements.

  God grant the Saxons also suffer, he thought anxiously. Otherwise there will be none left to defend our borders against Cerdic’s folk...

  He sent the crippled man off for treatment, with a promise of finding a billet for him in some monastery.

  Another week passed before more survivors returned. Artorius kept himself busy, riding out to visit scattered villas and farmsteads, temporary refuges for the people of Caerleon. Since trade had more or less ceased, there was a growing need for food. Artorius sent men out to hunt in the forests every day with orders to take fresh game to the refugees. He also set up depots where supplies of grain and other foodstuffs were stored. These were to be used only in dire emergency, guarded by companies of spearmen. He could do no more. At night, he returned to the villa and Gwenhwyfar. She had grown tense in recent weeks, and spent far more time in the company of God than her husband. Artorius didn’t mind sleeping alone. Their marriage was a fraud anyway, a ritual for public show. In private they were friends, nothing more, though occasionally they bedded together.

  They could at least be frank with each other. “Amhar’s disappearance troubles you,” he said one night as they sat at dinner together. “You don’t love him, but you worry for him. I find that hard to understand.”

  His wife picked at her meat. “I want to know where he went, that’s all,” she replied coldly. “He left me in a rage, and swore to take what we refused to give.”

  Artorius nodded. Gwenhwyfar had told him of her recent interview with Amhar.

  “You fear him, then? What he might do?”

  “My son is a vicious brute. He knows how to kill. How to hate. Yes, I fear him. He is his father’s son.”

  Artorius took a sip of wine. It was sour stuff, the dregs of the barrel, mixed with a little honey to make it more palatable. Thanks to the halt in trade with the Continent, his wine stock was almost depleted. He was reluctant to switch to ale. Artorius had acquired a taste for wine from his predecessor, Ambrosius, the last Roman governor of Britannia. From across the long years, he thought he heard his stepfather’s voice.

  “Beer and ale is for barbarians. The juice of the grape is for civilised men.”

  He smiled ruefully. If only Ambrosius was here now to advise him. Artorius was tired of making decisions, the loneliness and responsibility of kingship.

  “If we had the men, I would send out a search party for Amhar,” he said, “but every spear is needed. We must hope your son doesn’t take it into his thick skull to do something stupid.

  “Besides,” he added, more cheerfully, “what harm can one man do, even a murderous ape like Amhar? He has no followers, no ships or horses or gold. Only the minor estate I gave him, and a few servants. Perhaps he went home to look after his wife and child.”

  Gwenhwyfar gave an unladylike snort. “You think too highly of him, husband. I tell you he is out there, prowling about for something to devour. He is bitter and full of malice.”

  Not unlike his mother, thought A
rtorius. He took another swallow of bad wine and pushed Amhar from his mind. As the summer wore on, survivors from the Quest continued to trickle in. Among the last to return were Peredur and Medraut. Like the others, these two had aged considerably in a few months. Both were thinner, carried a few more scars, and had an old look to their eyes; the expression of young men who had seen and experienced too much in a short space of time. Their faces were scored with lines that shouldn’t have been there for decades yet. Artorius was glad to see them back and in one piece.

  Medraut had little to say of his adventures. “I wandered about like a lost sheep,” he told his father, “slept in the open, got wet and tired and hungry, and picked up lice from sleeping in a shepherd’s hut. Otherwise I have nothing to report.”

  The young man gave one of his lazy smiles. “Perhaps God reserves his miracles for more holy men. There are too many sins on my conscience.”

  Of the two, Peredur had changed the most. The former kitchen boy, slow and awkward and tongue-tied, was long gone. In his place stood a quietly confident young warrior of enormous size and strength. Peredur no longer cringed in the presence of greater men, or stooped to mask his great height. When Artorius received him in the main chamber of the villa, the young man met the High King’s eye and answered his questions with calm respect.

  “Peredur son of Evrawc,” said Artorius with approval, “you went away a boy, and came back a man. Your father would be proud.”

  “Perhaps, lord king,” Peredur replied evenly, “though I barely knew the man, and do nothing for his sake.”

  Artorius frowned at this uncomfortable reply. “At least you didn’t bring back any pieces of holy wood. Good man. We have gathered enough so-called Fragments to build a house, yet the plague still rages over land and sea. I hear it has crossed to Hibernia. No doubt carried by refugees fleeing this island.

  “Tell me,” he went on, “of the Quest. I have heard so many tales from your brothers. Some claim to have fought giants, or fire-breathing serpents in lakes, or legions of witches with nails like black daggers. Others saw miracles in churches. The bleeding head of John the Baptist carried past them on a silver platter, the miracle of the Risen Christ replayed, angels with burning swords, demons risen from Hell. Others saw nothing out of the ordinary, and rode about the kingdom in circles until they got bored and came home.”

  Peredur recited his adventures in a patient, matter-of-fact tone that left Artorius in little doubt of their truth. He clapped his hands at the slaying of the Black Oppressor, a brigand who had haunted the forests near Glevum since the early years of his reign.

  “I destroyed his war-band,” mused the king, “and put his fortress to the torch. I should have sent men to hunt him down, but there were always more important matters to attend to. You have done Britannia a great service, Peredur. I will mourn Swyno. A promising young officer. I had great hopes for him.”

  Peredur looked uneasy, and shifted his vast weight from one foot to another. He went on to speak of the Nine Witches of Glevum, how they briefly took him prisoner, and of their prophecy regarding the temple in the forest.

  “They told me I would find what I sought there,” said Peredur, “so I followed their directions. The temple was not hard to find.”

  He went quiet and suddenly reverted to his old self, staring at the ground in embarrassment. At times like this he resembled a young bullock, big and hefty and about as intelligent.

  “Well?” Artorius prompted. “What did you find at the temple?”

  Peredur chewed his bottom lip.

  “Nothing, lord king,” he mumbled. “The witches are a pack of deluded madwomen. They have no talent for prophecy or anything else. The temple they spoke of was a deserted byre in the woods. No spirits linger there. No relics. I spent one night under its roof, and then moved on.”

  You’re a bad liar, thought Artorius, but decided not to press the issue Maybe Peredur had experienced some humiliation at the temple he would rather not speak of. Young men were reluctant to admit their defeats.

  “After that I wandered the land,” Peredur went on, “and never caught a glimpse of the Fragment. God ignored my prayers. I was twice attacked by bands of robbers, homeless peasants who had fled their villages and turned to outlawry. I pitied them, yet had to slay a few to defend myself. Forgive me.”

  Artorius waved this aside. “Nothing to forgive. Men who turn to highway robbery deserve to meet a bad end. Very well, Peredur. I have heard enough. Go and rest.”

  The young man bowed awkwardly and shambled out of the room. Artorius watched him go, and wondered at the secrets in his head.

  Medraut and Peredur were the last to return. A final muster taken by Bedwyr, revealed over half of the Quest Companions still missing. Artorius mourned them, cursed his stupidity and the ambition of Bishop Cadwy. The loss of so many men on a pointless venture bred resentment among the Companions. Artorius was aware of it and the brittle atmosphere at council meetings in the Round Hall. Many junior officers blamed him for the disaster, though they dared not say so to his face. He had his spies in the guardrooms and barracks, and they informed him what was truly said among the officers when they thought the High King was out of earshot.

  “They wish me dead,” he said to Gwenhwyfar when they were alone in their bedchamber, “or retired. Time for me to renounce the world, take holy orders and trudge off to some monastery. Step aside for a younger, more dynamic man.”

  He smiled wearily. “Perhaps they are right. I would not be the first king to abdicate his throne and vanish into private life. Who was that Emperor who gave it all up so he could spend the rest of his days tending cabbages?”

  “Diocletian,” answered Gwenhwyfar, “and as soon as he retired, his empire fell apart. You cannot afford to relinquish power. Llacheu is not ready.”

  “He is a man full grown,” retorted her husband. “If he isn’t ready now, he never will be. At his age, I was serving Ambrosius as Magister Militum and fighting battles against sea-wolves. Llacheu has to stay cooped up in the palace, waiting patiently for me to drop off my perch. It isn’t fair on him.”

  “I know why you wish me to cling onto power,” he added sourly. “You fear what might happen after I’m gone. None of my sons have any love for their stepmother. Cadwy would have you locked up in a convent. Yet I cannot remain High King forever. Would you have me sit in my high chair until I fall from it, witless and drooling?”

  To his alarm, tears glimmered in the queen’s eyes. “You are a warrior in every respect,” she cried. “To you, speech is just another weapon. A way of striking down your enemies.”

  Artorius held up his hands. “Please. I am not your enemy. We are friends and allies, are we not?”

  She brushed aside the olive branch.

  “I didn’t choose this life,” she said with real anger and bitterness in her voice. “I didn’t choose to be dragged out of Powys and forced to wed a man twice my age. Nor did I choose to be abducted by Diwrnach. Raped. To bear a child I hated. But I am here, trapped in this gilded cage, and must make the best of it.”

  Artorius sat down heavily on the bed. “What would you have me do?” he asked helplessly, “live forever?”

  “Retire, if you must,” she answered. “Step down and hand over your crown to Llacheu. Before that happens, let me go back to Powys. Spend the rest of my days in the land of my birth. Where I belong.”

  Artorius looked up at his wife – the tall, severe, iron-willed woman he had never really known. Their life together had been an unhappy one. How could he deny her this?

  “As you wish, my lady,” he said.

  * * *

  His worst fears did not come to pass. By midsummer the fury of the Yellow Plague at last started to ebb, and the poisonous clouds hanging over Britannia dispersed a little. Those survivors who had taken refuge in the woods and wild places crept warily back to their homes. Artorius gave orders for the unburied victims of the plague to be hurriedly burnt, lest the corpses infect the living. He sent o
ut companies of mounted soldiers to assist with the burning, and all over free Britannia the smoke from stinking pyres of dead, human and animal, rose into the sky. Artorius dared to hope the harvest might not fail. He tore about his kingdom with renewed energy, overseeing the flow of people back to their farms and villages. Herds of livestock, held inside specially built corrals, were driven back to their pastures. Britannia exhaled, and life began anew.

  As summer faded into autumn, and there were no fresh eruptions of plague, Artorius decided to return to Caerleon.

  “The chief city of Britannia cannot remain empty for long,” he explained to his officers. “Caerleon is a symbol of our resistance. A beacon. While the city thrives, so does the kingdom.”

  He met with little opposition. The veterans were used to obeying his orders, while the Quest had thinned out the ranks of the junior officers Artorius was grateful for Medraut, who supported his every decision and dragged the younger men along with him.

  I was right to appoint him Magister Militum, he thought. The boy is a good soldier, and nothing more than that. He has found his place in life.

  Now the ban on Caerleon was lifted, the citizens eagerly flowed back to their city. Within days the streets were full of life again, the noise and bustle of crowds. Artorius kept the harbour closed and sent men across the Narrow Sea to see whether the plague had died down on the Continent. Until he was certain the danger had passed, Britannia would remain isolated, shut off from the rest of the world.

  In the early days of autumn, he received news from an unexpected quarter. An envoy from his chief ally in Hibernia, King Feidlimid mac Óengusa of Munster. The envoy came with an escort of five spearmen, all members of the Scotti king’s hearth-guard. Artorius received the visitors in the Round Hall.

  “Greetings to you, High King of Britannia,” the envoy declared, with a courteous bow to the throne. “I am Corc mac Luigthig, standard bearer to my master, Feidlimid of Munster.”