The Hadassah Covenant

by Robert Holdstock

  There was something about this young, aggressive man’s behaviour that wasn’t right. And then I recognised it: he was unable to say his father’s name. Medea had put a lock on his tongue. I was certain of it. What crueller way to block a father from his son’s heart than to make his father’s name an unspeakable curse.

  ‘Jason,’ I whispered. ‘Jason.’

  Orgetorix looked down, half slumped on his horse. His men were edgy, quick glances flashing between them.

  Then Orgetorix said quietly, ‘Find horses for these two. Quickly. We have a long ride.’ He nodded to me. ‘We’ll have to follow those bastards, back to Brennos. With luck, they won’t remember what you did; or what I did. There’s an invasion going on, as you’ll soon discover. I remember you now. You appear in my dreams. I was just a boy; you showed me simple tricks; I teased my father. You told me wonderful stories … I remember you.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you again … Thesokorus.’

  ‘Gods!’ he said, surprised but not threatened. ‘You know I was called that? My childhood name? I’ll not turn my back on you!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  King of Killers

  The six men who rode with Orgetorix were a squalid bunch, mercenaries who had failed to keep their temporary bonds of honour to the chiefs whom they had served in various lands, and who had escaped justice by the skins of their teeth; if the stained, broken pegs that graced their mouths could be called teeth. Two bull-jacketed Iberians, a sour-faced, nervous Avernian, a half-faced Tectosages of age and wisdom who watched me constantly, and two men who had been lone-wolf for so long they had forgotten where they were born.

  They had adhered to the young Greeklander as shellfish to granite at the ocean’s edge, perhaps because Orgetorix promised adventure and spoils; men such as these, ferocious and ferociously independent, still needed a path to follow, and a dreamer like Jason’s son—unaware of who he was, determined to find out where he had come from—was a little touch of magic in that dark, decaying night of their lives.

  They were not happy now: Orgetorix, intrigued by my knowledge of him, was keeping my company more than theirs, though he asked nothing further about me for some time. All that relaxed them was Elkavar’s singing and pipe-playing. The music, and his mellow voice, opened up the gates of memory for these men as they sat around the fire, chewing tough, half-cooked meat and drinking very sour wine. Every so often one of them would stand and sing, a fondly recollected drone from childhood, and Elkavar would do his best to follow the melody, and add some rhythm.

  ‘I find it very difficult to summon enthusiasm,’ he confided to me at some point during our journey, ‘for a song that mourns for the shade of a murdered mother, wandering in the barren hills of her homeland in search of a husband who has abducted the daughter of a man who sells donkeys.’

  Orgetorix kept his own counsel for two days, as we rode south and east in the wake of the raiders. All I learned in this time was that he had heard of the plan to attack the small oracle at Arkamon, and had followed not so much to attempt to stop the ransack, but to ensure that nothing of its spirit was taken. He believed that a little piece of his past lay within the caverns. Why else had the oracle called to him to find it?

  We moved through the land in quiet, cautious harmony.

  * * *

  Then, unexpectedly, we felt the rumble of the earth itself.

  The low murmur, the tremble of an army on the move. To look to the east was to see the tell-tale sign of haze, the dust that a hundred thousand horses threw into the air, the rippling of twilight and dawn that comes from the rising heat of so many bodies.

  Brennos was close to a series of valleys, running towards Thessaly, which were likely to be heavily watched. I rode with Orgetorix to a point on the hill where we could just make out the distant glitter of arms and armour. The raiding party, travelling at the wild gallop, had almost certainly rejoined the main body of men.

  ‘So there it is,’ the Greeklander said wistfully. ‘A horde dedicated to ransacking a part of the country that I should hold dearer to me than life itself. And I have done my bit in bringing them here. I have skulked and scouted the hills north of my country for them. I have led the invader to the city gates.’ He shifted in the saddle, arms crossed on the stiff pommel, dark eyes picking out my own attention. ‘You seem to know a great deal about a great many things, Merlin. Do you know where that horde is going?’

  ‘To Delphi.’

  He nodded absently, clearly not surprised by my knowledge. ‘Some of them will make it, no doubt. Brennos believes that his ancestors lie in the oracle there, prisoners of past plundering. I suspect that all he has done is created a wonderful story as an excuse for looting the sacred place. The pity of it is, I can feel neither for the truth nor for the lie. I don’t care either way. That little shrine behind us meant more to me than the whole of Greek Land, and I watched it raped and could do nothing about it. There is something dead in me. And why am I telling you this? Because there is something dead in you. We are dead men on a vibrant earth. We are out of place. Or am I wrong?’

  ‘We are not so much out of place as out of time.’

  Orgetorix laughed. ‘Well, well. I’ll sleep easier with that as a comfort for my dreams. Out of time? It’s time to talk. Let’s eat. Tomorrow our lives will change completely.’

  * * *

  The coarse band of men were impatient with Orgetorix, and had lost patience with Elkavar, who had been consigned to a solitary position at the edge of our rough camp. The mercenaries were keen to rejoin the army. Though Brennos was forcing the pace, we could see his fires in the distance, and these men could imagine a better spread of food being offered at the clustered camps than the dry rations we chewed on in our rocky overhang, more exposed to the night than sheltered from the cool wind.

  ‘I recall you more and more,’ Orgetorix said from his blanket. He was stretched out and propped on his elbow, the position he adopted both for eating and talking. He waved his small knife easily as he spoke, cutting chunks from a coarse loaf and swallowing quickly.

  ‘There are two faces I remember, from the palace dream. Both are staring at me from behind thick golden bars. One is black-bearded and the man is screaming; the other is not bearded at all and he is anguished. I can never remember enough of this dream to remember the words being shouted—angry, certainly; frightened; begging—but there is always a terrible smell of stinking blood—and then a knife goes into me.

  ‘And another strange thing. This happened soon after. I’m sure this happened to me in real life, though it feels vague. I remember being huddled in a boat with Little Dreamer. Little Dreamer was my brother. The sea was rough and a cowled woman was barking instructions to an armoured man who was rowing for all his worth, the sweat pouring from him. A ragged sail was flapping, torn and useless, and we came ashore. And this man picked me up under his arm and carried me to a cave. Little Dreamer screamed. The woman stalked about us, pacing up and down against the light, cursing in a strange language, while outside the weather changed to a black storm. It still makes me shiver to remember how the sea came crashing into that cave, sucking at us, trying to claw us back to its waves.

  ‘My little brother was crying; and I was terrified. Something was raging at us; Poseidon, I expect. We were out of favour with the gods, there was no doubt about that. It was almost a relief when the woman took us in her arms at the back of that cave, safe now that the tide was receding, and told us to sleep. I remember those words so clearly: you must go to sleep now; as boys. You will go to sleep as boys. You will wake as men, and you will care for each other, and you will be cared for.’

  Orgetorix stared at the fire for a moment, then suddenly sheathed his knife, stood up and walked to a tree that clung to the rock face with three bony roots. In the distance, the summer night was scattered with tiny fires.

  ‘That anguished man was you, Merlin,’ he said without looking at me. ‘I see that now. And the bearded man—’

  ‘Yes
,’ I agreed before he could say it. ‘Your father.’

  I walked over to join him. His arms were crossed and he was staring down the winding path that would take us over the nearest hill and into the bosom of the army again.

  ‘Rottenbones. A terrible name for a terrible man. He betrayed his family. He caused Little Dreamer and myself to be cast into exile.’

  I kept silent for the moment. When hate and anger flushes through a man there is a certain stench; Orgetorix was confused about many things, but hatred for Jason was a rope around his heart, pulled strongly by a heavier horse than I was prepared to break at that moment.

  He sighed suddenly, glancing at me. ‘And my mother, I’m sure, was the woman in the sea-cave. Though why she spoke in a strange tongue … I can’t fathom that.’

  ‘Medea.’

  ‘Of Colchis.’

  ‘A different land. With a stranger, older tongue than yours.’

  ‘Is that right? Then that would explain it. It was never explained to me. She was the daughter of a king called Aeëtes. I could never find anyone who had heard of him. A storyteller talked once of a ram’s fleece that bled gold and had come from that place, that Colchis. I’d thought it was on one of the islands. But a different, older land, you say. Yes, my brother and I must certainly be a long way away from home.’

  They had woken from a deep sleep and walked hand in hand from the cave; but the cave was no longer the sea-cave, where Poseidon had tried to destroy them. This was a place in the hills, warm, scented, a system of caverns through which a wind like a gentle voice blew constantly.

  And as a man, he had just watched it sacked. The children had emerged from the oracle at Arkamon.

  Orgetorix suddenly brightened. He turned away from the valley, hoisted himself into the crook of two branches, and regarded me with interest for a long, lingering moment. Then he nodded, as if something had become plain to him. Indeed, he went on:

  ‘After that, memory is much clearer. There were fruit trees and olive trees and we fed like mad things, two little scavengers in the middle of nowhere. After the horrors of the sea, and those nightmare days, this was Elysia. We hid in the woods and watched people coming and going and talking to the cave. We thought that was very funny. Sometimes they brought cooked meat and left it there, and after they’d gone, several men came and took it away. We managed to steal some of it before they came, and they left wine as well, though we didn’t know it was wine, and one day we got so drunk we gave ourselves away. A raven dropped on us, a huge creature, and drove us into the woods while these strange men were pursuing us. We got away, but we were out of our heads, and very sick. I recall a man on horseback riding down on us. He had a helmet like burnished gold, with a bird of prey, wings spread, rising from its crown. His horse was masked; a terrifying sight, like a demon. But this man was Belovisus, descended from a great king of the Bituriges, and he took pity on us at once. What he was doing at the oracle I have no idea—we keltoi get everywhere, as I’m sure you’ve noticed … but he took us north, to his fort, and we trained and grew up as his foster sons.’

  He slipped down from the tree and rubbed his hands together as if chilled, though the evening was warm and still. I had the impression he was glad to have talked to me.

  ‘And that is that, for the moment … Merlin…’ he said with a half-smile. ‘There are a few questions I’d like to ask of you.’

  ‘If I have the answers…’

  ‘I’m curious to know about my brother. You saw me at Arkamon. You are a part of my life, clearly. I just wonder … have you ever seen my brother?’

  He searched my eyes, not with suspicion, but with need. He was like the dead, I thought. I decided to lie; I was not sure of what I believed and I saw no point in building some false hope in him. I’d already made the mistake of doing that with Jason.

  Jason!

  Where in the world was he, I wondered quickly. How long had Elkavar and I been lost in the underworld? Perhaps the other argonauts were already with the army, madly seeking the ghosts and guilty of their lives.

  ‘If I remember, the oracle told you he was between sea-washed walls; the ruler of his own land—’

  ‘Though he doesn’t know it! Yes. I remember the words of the oracle. And I knew it was you in the rocks, listening that day. I knew I was right.’ He laughed. ‘Though I didn’t know who you were. Are you following me, Merlin?’

  ‘No. I follow a particular path; don’t ask me why. Sometimes I find it crosses my past. That’s all that has happened here.’

  He shook his head, ignorant of my meaning, confused by my words. ‘What an odd man you are. I wonder: did you love my mother?’

  ‘I never loved Medea,’ I answered truthfully. But his question had been like a blow between the eyes. That look of Fierce Eyes’ in the underworld; that sudden shock; the memories that we shared at that instant, of softer, kinder, closer times. Before Colchis.

  Unaware of my confusion, Orgetorix persisted with a sallow smile, ‘Then did you love my father?’

  ‘Yes. I loved Jason.’

  ‘You loved the man I hate. How strange. How strange. That we should be standing here like this, knowing now what we know, and I’m still opening my guts to you.’

  Should I tell him that I knew where his brother lived? Should I tell him what I suspected about the brother he had hunted with, had ridden-to-raid with, had trained and grown with, under the watchful, caring, yet unseeing eye of Belovisus?

  I was put out of my misery by Orgetorix himself, who suddenly said: ‘I lost him. He disappeared. It was so strange, Merlin. Little Dreamer. One day we were riding through a deep valley. It was very quiet. We were recovering from light wounds received on a cattle raid. It had been a good raid; ten head of shorthorn blacks, and a grey bull; and four horses. War trumpets were being sounded, but there would be no retaliation for a while. They weren’t strong enough, a small family on poor land, so a few of us went hunting. My brother thought he’d spotted a fawn, a perfect catch. I saw him ride down through the bushes, and heard his sudden laugh: I’ve seen you! That sort of laugh. And he never came back. I found his horse grazing a short way away, but no rider. I searched the valley for two days. It seems impossible that he could have vanished so completely. If he had been killed, the river could not have carried him far. I am haunted by that loss. No caves, no passages, no twists in the valley, no dreamy orchards or overhanging oaks, no shrine, no stone-mouthed hill … nothing that could have snared him. I missed him and I missed him. We had been exiled together; and to lose him so suddenly, and so mysteriously…’

  He watched me carefully, thinking hard, clearly in pain with the memory. Then he added quietly, ‘I suppose that is why there is something dead inside me. This is not my life. I have lost my life. A valley in the land of the Bituriges stole the last fragment of it. Until you…’

  I took a deep breath, ordering my thoughts.

  But a slow drone on Elkavar’s elbow-pipes stopped me from responding. We looked round to see one of the Iberian mercenaries standing a short way away, spear held low and pointed towards us. His suspicious gaze flickered from Orgetorix to me and back again. Behind him, the other men were mounted, the spare horses on rope leads.

  ‘What’s this, Madraud?’ Orgetorix asked softly.

  ‘You do a lot of talking in the night,’ Madraud answered. ‘But you’d stopped to sleep. We wanted to ride on, but you wanted to stop. To sleep. We wanted a fight at that speaking hole. But you wanted to watch from a distance. There is something of the game animal in you, we’ve decided; to be hunted, not to hunt. So this is goodbye.’

  ‘Then goodbye it is,’ Orgetorix said evenly. ‘But leave those horses.’

  ‘The horses come with us,’ Madraud murmured with a meaningful shake of his head, the spear lifting in his grip.

  Then I found out why young Thesokorus had perhaps earned the name ‘king of killers’.

  He moved so fast I was scarcely aware that he had left my side. He pressed suddenly and fa
tally against the Iberian, using a technique I had seen practised by the Greeklanders themselves, a body charge that risked all and claimed all. Madraud gasped as his leader gripped him by the back of the neck, pushing aside spear, pushing in the lethal, leaf-shaped iron blade that he had slipped from its scabbard with the sound of metal dragged against a sharpening-stone.

  At once, one of the other mercenaries jumped from his horse and ran at me, spear raised to throw, eyes like a wild dog’s. He was suddenly struck by a wailing sack. Elkavar had flung his pipes. The man, startled for a moment, staggered back as Orgetorix struck him a lightning blow through the heart.

  The other riders turned their mounts and started to canter. Orgetorix raced after them, jumped nimbly on to the trailing horse, ran along its back, on to the back of the Avernian’s horse, knocking aside the spear that was stabbed at him, struck down through the man’s skull, then leaned over the panting head of the animal and grabbed the reins, tugging it aside with the three spare horses. The other riders galloped down the hill. The jerking body of the Avernian was pushed to the ground where it continued to thrash wildly for a few moments. Orgetorix trotted back, leading our mounts, frowning.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting that,’ he said, with a grim glance at Madraud’s sprawled corpse.

  ‘I wouldn’t have known,’ I replied. ‘You fight like a cat, but without the screaming.’

  ‘Screaming wastes breath. Merlin, I’ll ask you to strip these bastards when they’ve stopped twitching. Madraud’s leather jacket looks better for the battle ahead than that filthy sheepskin you’re wearing…’

  Once again my clothing was being criticised!

  ‘And their boots and belts are useful.’

  He dismounted and inspected his own clothing for blood.

  Elkavar was inspecting his pipes. Two splits in the bag, from my attacker’s sword, had taken away their breath.