Arthur Imperator (13 page)

XXVI Muirch

Muirch
the Gael was lying prone in wet grass, peering down into the valley where a column of armed men had halted. They seemed to be receiving instructions from a leader and the sea raider was cursing to himself. He had beached his longship and split his force into three, with orders to move inland and plunder what farms or settlements they could. Now, armed men who were likely hunting him had cut off his route to his ship. He was outnumbered and in difficulty and he swore, this time aloud. 

“Don’t
do that,” said a voice at his elbow. He scowled. It was one of the women who had insisted on coming along - Karay, the tall red-haired one with all the opinions and the willingness to flatten any man who displeased her. Muirch remembered the bishop’s downfall but grudgingly acknowledged that the females had been more useful than any of his men. They’d patched up several raiders who had been injured, and Karay had displayed a remarkable knowledge of herbal cures. She’d used poppy seed and henbane to ease one raider’s wounds; had made an infusion from dried Illyrican iris to stem Muirch’s own terrible headaches and when one youth had suffered badly from seasickness, had cured it with a broth she made with ginger root and thyme.

The
blonde Jesla had been especially good at finding where villagers had hidden their possessions and stores and, after more physical persuasions had failed, she and the sorceress Caria had used invented spells to scare an obstinate abbot into revealing where the abbey coin was hidden.

“Keep
quiet, they may not know we’re here,” the woman said. Muirch glanced around. His handful of men were all crouched, back from the skyline, obedient to the instructions of the female, Jesla, who wore her hair with a ribbon of tight, flat curls around the face. It was a style much prized by the Romans, who liked a low frontal hairline. Muirch wondered how she kept it that way, then stopped his musing. “They know we’re here, they didn’t come out fully armed to catch rabbits,” he growled.

Karay
looked levelly at him. “So, your plan would be?” she asked.

The
Gael grunted. He had no idea. 

To
get back to the ship, they’d have to cross open ground in full view of the column. They couldn’t outrun them, they were too few to fight them. Muirch scratched his crotch in puzzlement. He was not accustomed to thinking and planning. It was usually his technique to find a village, storm in, burn the place and carry off whatever he could find before he had to fight. Karay slid backwards, and crouching, moved to talk with Jesla. Then she came back and flopped on the grass beside the raider. She smiled at him, and tore at the neck of her tunic. “I have to look like an abused captive,” she said. “I’m going down to meet them,” she said. “Jesla is organising the men.”

Muirch
looked on, open-mouthed, as his men began running, doubled over to avoid being seen above the skyline. Some went right, the others went left, and they separated themselves by several hundred yards. Jesla joined Muirch just as Karay patted his shoulder and stood up. Then the red haired Celt began running down the hillside towards the stalled column.

“Stand
up and start shouting, wave your arms, turn and look behind you and start signalling,” Jesla instructed the bewildered raider. She took her place next to him and began shouting to an invisible someone behind her. Quietly, she explained to Muirch: “Karay’s gone down there to say she’s escaped from a huge war band and they sent a few of their men to bring her back.” Muirch looked along the crestline where his men were now showing themselves and shouting back and forth. Karay was at the valley floor and was speaking urgently to the leader of the column, pointing back up at Muirch. In moments, the soldier called his column to order. Quickly, they formed up and began to move away, Karay going with them.

“She’ll
slip away after dark. She knows where the ship is,” Jesla said confidently. “Now, call your boys back, form up and march down the hill towards those people.”

Muirch
started. “They’d butcher us!” he protested.

“They’d
think you were trying to delay them so the huge war band behind can catch them. If you go after them, they’ll march away even faster,” she explained. “Tonight, we’ll camp in an open place, where our fires can be seen, and we will have a dozen or more big blazes. That will keep the soldiers away until Karay can join us. And when she does, we can gather up the others and sail away.” She turned to beckon the raiders together.

“I’ll
never get to go voyaging again without these women,” Muirch thought unhappily.

XXVII
Chart

Once
again, I swung onto horseback, the familiar twin saddle horns both before and behind me, and for the next, uncounted time I set out on the long journey back to Chester. My riders and I went steadily, clattering along the metalled Roman road to Gloucester, and crossing the ghostly, ancient Fosse Way that was once the rampart-and-ditch frontier of Britannia. We forded the brown Severn river and trotted on through the lush valley of the Wye. Escorted by my armed, grim troop, I passed unhindered across the territories of the Atrebates, Dobunni, Silures and Cornovii. It was a journey of hasty changes of horse, snatched food and swilled wine, of dozing jolting in the saddle as we rode over sheep-nibbled turf ridges and through ancient forests. Finally we arrived, sore and stinking of horse sweat, rank leather and foul mud. We were hungry and dizzy from lack of sleep but grateful to see at last the familiar red sandstone fortress above the harbour. There, I knew, Guinevia waited, her mind cracking from the nightmares she had undergone, her steely soul holding on only because of the powers given to her by her goddess. 

I
have never taken her into my arms so gladly, never looked into her tormented eyes so hungrily. I carried her to our sleeping chamber and she curled in my arms like a kitten and slept, and slept. Her healing had begun, but she still carried a dark vow in her heart, and I guessed what it was. I had made the same grisly promise to myself, and one day Allectus would be disembowelled because of it.

When
the morning sun’s fingers crept over the stone sill of my window and the nurse brought in our burbling four year old son Milo to play with us, the dark thoughts were dissipated for a time and I held hope of healing for my sorceress. I had to give her time, and life was improving, but as always there were the dispatches. I had a kingdom to manage, and it was unravelling.

First
came news of the Saxons, who were collecting ominously powerful new strength. There were reports from beyond the Wall of a Pictish gathering, reports on which I focused, as Allectus could well be behind them. Raiders had burned settlements and an abbey in the northwest, far on our side of the Wall. There was significant news from spies of a revolt by Christians who had been dispossessed of their lands for treason against the old emperor, and not least was a rumour that the Augustus Maximian had now subdued the Alemanni beyond the Rhine. Released from that urgent business, he was supposedly turning his thoughts and his energies to recover the lost colonia of Britain. It was a huge threat.

Guinevia
came into the chamber and leaned on the mensa where I was working. “I wish I could line these enemies up one by one,” I grumbled. “It’s a mess keeping them straight in my head, I feel like a juggler with too many objects spinning at once.”

She
yawned and rubbed her eyes. “I could chart them for you, easily enough,” she said casually.

Something
jangled in my brain. “Chart them?”

“Yes,”
she said, smoothing a strand of hair from her forehead. “I can just put them down on a piece of papyrus, make a map of them and tell you what each is doing.” 

Maybe
my lower jaw made a noise as it hit my chest, or maybe I imagined that. “Tell me what they are doing?” I echoed her.

“I
can view them, watch them without ever leaving this room,” she said simply. “And I can give you an eagle’s view of the kingdom.”

What
she told me and showed me in the next turn of the sandglass gave me hope that with the aid of her knowledge, we could take Britain back for ever. First, she sketched what Myrddin had once shown her: a view from the sky of the islands of Britain. Guinevia had trained as a scribe, and she had the powers of an adept of a mighty witch goddess. Instead of offering the usual Roman itinerum’s list of places along a road, she could draw on her mental view of the land to produce a chart that showed the positions of settlements, roads, rivers and mountains, all displayed as if looked at from above, from under the wings of a hawk or an eagle. But that was not all.

From
Myrddin and a group of Mesopotamian magi, she had gained the power to send her mind out to far places where she could see what was happening. She could see the people, hear the wind, feel the warmth of a faraway sun, all as it happened. She could not hear what those people were saying, but she could see them clearly in their most secret conclaves, at their very actions. As well as this tremendous ability to view events far in the distance, she had developed a way to reliably peer into the future. This she explained to me as I tried to grasp its staggering implications.

“When
I found that I could send my mind out to view in a remote place what was happening, I wondered if I could also see what would be happening in the future. So I devised a small experiment. I told my maid to choose two objects without telling me what they were. One would represent ‘Yes,’ one would represent ‘No.’ The question I posed was simple. Would her lover’s fishing boat come back within two days? When the time was up, she would show me the thing that meant ‘Yes’ if he had come back. If he had not, she would show me the ‘No’ object. 

“I would not know before the two days were up what either object was, but after two days, I would be shown one of them. Once my maid had decided on the objects I would be shown in the future, I went into my chamber and sent out my mind, and I saw a shield.

“Two
days later, as planned, she showed me the object that was relevant to events. Because he had not yet returned, she showed me the ‘No’ object. It was a shield, just as I had seen, and it closed the circle: I had foreseen what I would be shown, and it was correct.”

Guinevia
had made the tests more elaborate, but they still did not fail her. By choosing objects that were not similar, she could easier identify the symbol that would reflect a future result. It was critical that she should be shown the correct object after the event had happened, but if that were done, she could predict events. She could tell me if I would be successful in battle, she could tell me if Maximian would invade, she could predict the future. But that was not all.

By
sending out her mind, she could also tell me what was happening at this moment. It was how she had seen Allectus plotting with the Picts, how she had witnessed her father being boiled to death by my traitorous lieutenant. Thanks to her Druidical learning and the painful price of her suffering, I had a psychic spy who could tell me of my enemies’ actions as they performed them, even if they were scores of miles away, even if they were safe inside their own strongholds. It was a weapon more powerful than any sword like Exalter, more potent than any fleet or army. It was a secret armament that could save Britain.

So
I planned to start with the Picts. They’d been a thorn in my flesh for a while, raiding across the Wall, burning settlements and taking Britons as slaves. They had broken the agreements we’d made, had not sent the tribute they’d promised. I’d tried to slap them down, but our last expedition had failed. When we tried to pincer their army they had slipped through our steel noose. This time, with Guinevia’s vision to guide me, I could trap the troublesome bastards and bring them to heel. 

I
had put aside the endless reports concerning supplies and rosters and was pondering this pleasant thought when a commotion at the gate below my window attracted my attention. Guards were bringing in an unusual coffle of shackled prisoners. They were led by a tall Celtic woman whose fiery hair hung in a single braid down to her waist. Behind her was chained another woman, equally tall, whose fair hair was surprisingly worn in the style of a fashionable Roman matron, low across the forehead and tightly curled. A big shaggy-haired brute shambled behind the two women, well shackled and with a battered and bruised face that spoke of resistance to his capture. Behind him trailed a dozen more brigands wearing an array of tattered finery, much of it clerical and likely plundered. One, in full monk’s cowled habit, had an empty scabbard at his belt and looked around furiously, his face red with anger above his blond beard. The coffle was brought up at the rear by a pair of villainous brigands chained to and pulling along a small handcart that was sheeted and roped, and probably contained plunder. I called down to the guard to halt while I went to examine them. 

“Got
this lot near Carnforth, trying to sneak back to their ship, but it had already gone – we’d chased it off, lord,” said the centurion. “They tried to fool us with a fake hostage and pretended there were more of them so we didn’t get too close too soon. It paid off at first, but the Scotch one, that bishop over there, the one with too much to say, led the others right into us just before dawn. I think he was trying to reconnect with the others, and got it wrong.” 

The
women were eager to talk, the bishop and his men admitted nothing and claimed to have been spreading the gospel of the Jesus prophet, and the surly, black-haired brute simply spat at me. Their stories were simple and gelled with what I’d heard. One group had been separated from the rest of their longship’s crew and when they had returned to where they’d left their vessel, it had already sailed without them. After some muttering in Gaelic to get their stories straight, the others said they had never seen the first group before, but it was obvious enough to me that they had been raiding together as a joint force. 

“They fooled us for a while, lord,” admitted the guard captain. “Made us think there were more of them than we could cope with. This one,” he gestured at the redhead, “pretended to have been their hostage, but she’s as savage as any of them and worse than most.”

The
Celt smiled sweetly at me. “Can we have our cooking pots, please?” she said, nodding to the wrapped plunder. “We only came here to trade.” 

The
guard sighed and shook his head. “She’s giving me an ear ache again. They burned five or six farms, sacked an abbey and gave the abbot a good spanking. He won’t be sitting down between prayers for a while. Oh yes, most of the abbey goods are on the cart.”

I
nodded. “Bang the captives up, we’ll deal with them later. Take anything useful on the cart to the quartermaster, get the coin and silver to my aide Androcles. I’ll send thanks to the abbot for his generous donation. It’s good to see the Christians wanting to help keep Britain free.”

The
furious-looking monk overheard what I said and spoke up loudly. “I am Bishop Iacomus Candless,” he said. “I represent Mother Church and it is sacrilege to take what is rightfully hers. Set me and my men free, and return our goods to us.” He paused, then added: “At once.” I probably flexed an eyebrow at this chained, muddied wretch with the imperious manner, but I responded softly.

“I am Arthur, Imperator Caesar Britannicus, Marcus Aurelius Mauseus Carausius, the dutiful, fortunate and unconquered Augustus,” I said slowly. “You will be pleased to be my guest, and your accommodations, dear Bishop Candless, are waiting for you, so please do not delay us in our hospitality.” I turned to the centurion. “Do have care about the good bishop’s quarters,” I said.

The
soldier grinned. “Yes, lord,” he said. “I will give it my full attention.” As the prisoners moved away, I saw the bishop take a kick up his hindquarters from the centurion’s nailed caliga. Not a good time for churchmen’s bottoms, I thought, if that abbot, too, was standing to pray these days.