Bard I (33 page)

He might have been a native Briton himself as he uttered the words-the war-band of Count Artorius was a group apart, each man in it sworn to the Count and to Britain, no matter what his origins.

‘Sergius will not be needing it,’ Felimid said darkly.

‘He’s almost surely dead.’

The bard was mistaken. Sergius had lived; he’d escaped from Linnet’s village with five of his Bulgars. And he was armed; having left his own sword by his horse after robbing Felimid of Kincaid, he regained it later. Kugal too was armed, with his short Hunnic sabre. He’d crawled a little way into the darkness before the bard’s music had reduced him to whimpering meat-his other weapons had all been destroyed, but Kugal with a sword was formidable enough. There were no words in any tongue for the way he craved vengeance. The bard had shamed him.

Felimid lay in pleasant unawareness among the Count of Britain’s war-men. Sleep beckoned. The bard was awake and thinking, none the less. His eyes shone dimly in the starlight, moving to watch three of the party as they went to stand sentry-go.

This was a strange business. There might be treasure; more likely there was none. Palamides claimed not to believe, but his barely suppressed excitement said differently. He wanted Felimid to take him to the ruined villa the bard had spoken of to Sergius. On the morrow. he’d do that. There was no difficulty, for the place did exist, and it even lay on the way to London, where Felimid wanted to go. It would be interesting, thought the bard, to look for this supposed hoard, and these men would not kill him out of hand when he was of no further use in their treasure hunt. Trouble was more likely if by chance some rich treasure was found.

Improbable . . .

A wolf s hellish howl echoed shockingly close. The eerie sense of a thing twice experienced, and the blind, terrifying conviction that Tosti had returned. sent shivers up Felimid’s spine. A horse screamed in the dark somewhere.

‘I curse you,’ Tosti had said.

The screaming horse galloped blindly into their camp, and four men halted it by main force, clinging to saddle and bridle, dragging its head down.

‘Palarnides!’ yelled the bard. ‘That is Sergius’s grey mare!’

‘Come with me!’ snapped Palamides. ‘You, Balin, Kehydi, come along-and bring firebrands! I’ll know what’s afoot here.’

The mare plunged and kicked so wildly that all four men were tested to hold her. Her eyes had become orbs of blood rolling madly in her head. Her ears lay flat back, and foam spattered her from chest to flanks. Her terror was pitiful.

Felimid gripped the sword of Ogma, and ran after Palamides. He moved in a waking nightmare. By rights the nightmare should have been over, but seemingly it was not.

The wolf bayed exultantly to hear them coming. Then his wild lupine joy ceased, as if some sudden hand had forced him into a muzzle. Did he sense the nearness of silver that had slain him once?

Balin discovered something mangled and sodden on the grass, stumbling over it. Torches streaming uncertain red-gold light revealed what was left of a man, but the wolf had vanished. Its victim was Kugal, Sergius’s henchman. Although not dead, he was dying quickly. He gurgled a few phrases that had no meaning for his hearers. Even in his death agony he saw that they did not understand, and tried again. Then he died.

‘He spoke in Greek,’ Palamides said.

‘Well, and said what?’

‘It sounded like—white wolf, demon! Odd. The wolf you slew was white.’

‘It was, indeed,’ Felimid answered in a strange voice.

‘Let’s return and build up the fire. You will not believe the things I have to tell you.’

He was absolutely right.

‘It’s folly,’ Palamides said, with the certainty of common sense. ‘You did not see this madman Tosti become a wolf. You saw a wolf, any wolf, that harried you through the night but gave up the chase at dawn. Then you chanced upon Tosti again. wearing a wolfskin—as he’s done all the time you have known him!—and slew him. That was well done.’ If true. He did not speak the words, but it was plain he thought them. ‘It’s evident now that your wolf lives, and was not one and the same with Tosti. It must be rabid, foaming mad, or it would never behave as it does. We must keep careful watch.’

‘A white wolf, and it lame of the right fore-foot? A white wolf whose tracks turn to those of a man? That is stretching chance, Palamide!.. And Kugal named him demon.’

The Thracian’s mailed shoulders lifted slightly. For superstition, there was not much to choose between a Hunnic warrior and a Celtic bard-so said his shrug.

Felimid slept not at all for the rest of that night. Snarling wolves with pale eyes prowled ever at the fringes of his vision. Time and again he heard a dying voice say, ‘I curse you.’

With daybreak, they discovered the full carnage that had been done little more than a mile from their camping place. Five men, counting Kugal, lay tom and mangled on the turf. Five sturdy ponies were similarly scattered in grotesque death, the place like a butcher’s yard. Something powerful and deadly had run mad there with the lust of slaughter. The stink of black clotted blood hung heavy in the air, and flies were busy.

‘It played with them,’ Gareth muttered. ‘See? The horses scattered in terror, but it went out after them, herded them back one by one, and tore them apart in sight of their masters. Then it turned on the men. It’s not canny.’

‘Faugh! No ghost did this.’

‘True. No ghost that ever I heard of leaves tracks.· Felimid pointed to wolf prints. ‘But these were not made by the same wolf I saw. That one was lame, this one is not. And big as this wolf must have been, the prints of the other were bigger yet. Tosti’s dead, and no matter how you disbelieve, I know the lame wolf was he. This one has to be different, and yet . . . two wolves, both given to wanton slaughter. both cunning as no right wolf is.’ Felimid did not know what to think. The detached, insouciant wits that had served him well in other emergencies seemed useless now. ‘It’s beyond me.’

Palamides looked at him with irritation and a certain concern. ‘We’re ten armed and armored men of Artorius’s war-band. We have nothing to fear from any wolf, natural or demoniacal.’

‘I hope so,’ Felimid muttered, not sounding hopeful.

‘Ha. what’s this?’

‘Tom clothing.’

‘It belonged to Sergius. That’s one of his boots yonder, J am thinking.’

‘Then he will be dead. The wolf dragged him off and ate him.’

‘His garments are shredded a part, but there’s no blood upon them.’

‘Forget it, and all your misgivings.’ Palamides said decisively. ‘Think of taking us to the villa Sergius sought. By Peter! These men didn’t come so close to us by chance. They must have been searching for the same place as we. Don’t question events too closely, Felimid – now you have a horse to replace the one you lost.

That ought to please you.’

Felimid smiled wryly, but he was sore troubled.

L
ONG
AGO
,
THE
ABANDONED
VILLA
’
S
ROOF
HAD
FALLEN
IN
. Time had broken the stone walls almost to the ground; a century’s wind and rain, scouring the floors, had sifted weed-grown earth into the corners. Nothing remained of the outbuildings but shallow dimples in the ground where post-holes had been. Stubs of broken pillars and two complete ones outlined three sides of a square, showing where a colonnaded walk around an open courtyard had formerly given shade. Grassy soil in a thin layer had sifted across the courtyard pave itself.

‘And fools can say even now that the Empire stands in the West,’ Palamides muttered bleakly. ‘Huh! Whatever remains of the western Empire is here in Britain.’

Felimid walked about the grassy courtyard. stamping with his heel. ‘I’m thinking there is laid stone under here,’ he said. ‘It’s flat as a table. and has the feel. Sergius said something about a pave with a design of Europa and the Bull. Not but that he mayn’t have meant the floor of some room, or another villa entirely.’

‘Spread out and search,’ Palamides ordered. ‘Little use to dig before we’ve some idea of whether this is the right villa.’

No floor of the villa’s interior rooms bore any such scene. ‘Let’s have this earth spaded away,’ Palamides said, ‘and see what we find.’

The warriors drew lots for the work. Yellow-haired Kehydi of Demetia lost, and grumbled as he plied the spade. It slid easily between earth and pave, the depth-less soil peeling away in unresisting strips, so that the task went quickly.

The stones were cleared at last. They took shelter among the walls from a brief but heavy downpour of rain, and when it was over the courtyard pave had been washed clean. Despite fading and discoloring of the mosaic scene, and the approach of dusk, the outline of a great bull with a naked maiden clinging to his back was distinct.

Palamides’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘I hadn’t believed this could truly be the right place, on such meagre knowledge. But we’ve found it! The right place!’

‘That is fine,’ growled Gaheris of Dun Eiddyn. ‘Now where do we dig for this wonderful treasure? We don’t know where on the estate it was hidden. Are we to probe every foot of those unused fields out there?’

‘No need, my unlettered friend,’ Palamides said amicably. ‘You forget we have this man Sergius’s mare, and with her, her saddle and saddle-pouches. I thought these writings of his ancestor’s which led him so far might be within, and o they were. I read some interesting things while the rest of you were watching Kehydi work. . . Hand me the crowbar. With any luck, you are about to see the value of being educated in Adrianople.’

Palamides moved back and forth, thumping the bar on the pave. The hollow sound, when it came, was almost the same as the noises elsewhere-but not quite. A febrile anticipation gripped them.

‘Is there a cellar below?’ Gareth asked.

‘Not a cellar,’ Palamides answered, smashing the bull’s hind quarters to shards. ‘They ripped up the courtyard pave and excavated a makeshift vault beneath. Then they roofed it over with timber, spread new mortar and put down a new mosaic pave.’ Impatiently, he levered up a couple of the underlying flat stones. ‘It grows too dark! Make lights, some of you. Let others bring the mattocks and break me this hole wider. By the Passion! If nothing is down there but a cellar full of bones and broken wine-jars, then Satan’s own amount of senseless death has gone into finding it!’

Despite his mordant words, he had the treasure­hunter’s fever. His lean body had grown tense within his mail. Avidly, he watched the work progress. Even the bard-who, if asked, would have said he cared not if any treasure existed-grew absorbed in the drama. A need to know gripped him. Because of it, what happened was partly his own fault.

The werwolf came silently as a ghost, stalking among the ruined walls. The horses raised no panicked warning, for the wind blew from them to him as he advanced. He lusted for warm blood to wash his tongue, living meat to tear. But his vestiges of human cunning told him what must be done first. He rushed across the courtyard without even a snarl to alert the engrossed men.

He sprang. His rough-coated hurtling body slammed Felimid flat to the pave. The bard lifted an arm to ward his throat, but the wolf’s fangs were not seeking there. He gripped Felimid’s sword-belt, and jerked with preternatural strength. The buckle broke like a tinsel gaud. The belt snapped from around Felimid’s body. Young Gareth of Eiddyn lunged with his sword; the werwolf scarcely noticed. With Felimid’s scabbard crosswise in his mouth, the creature ran.

. . . Even through the leather-covered wooden sheath, the inlaid silver characters on the blade caused pain. Every tooth in the shapeshifter’s jaw was a spike of raw discomfort. Every nerve in his beast-body twitched with honor. Still, he did not drop the thing as he longed to do. Racing through the dusk, he made one more bound, and one more, and still another. Men were contemptible, slow and confused. They could not follow him. Soon he would drop the sword, when he had run so far that none of the men could possibly find it in time. Then he would turn and go back. Soon
!

‘I ran him through,’ Gareth was saying, aghast. ‘I drove this blade from side to side. I swear it! He shook himself free as a dog shakes drops of water, and look! There is no blood!’

‘You missed your stroke,’ Palamides told him, but his conviction was shaken.

‘Never!’

‘Never, indeed,’ the bard said sickly. He grabbed the crowbar. ‘Dig! The beast will return! He’s taken Kincaid, the only weapon we had between us that could slay him. Unless we find silver beneath this pave, we are all dead men, I tell you plain. Dig!’

Flat stones and a layer of gravel had been cleared away, baring heavy timbers rotted by damp and time. Felimid drove the crowbar into them. Palamides and the others watched as though he’d gone mad.

He levered a big shard of wood from the crack between two planks, rammed the crowbar down, wrenched, twisted, struck, hammered. One of the planks broke. Felimid rained blows on the one beside it. The timbers suddenly slid inward, taking a slippage of gravel and pavestones with them. Crashing sounds came from the hole beneath. The actual mosaic held together without support, a thin crust of delicately patterned fragments over blackness. A few blows of the crowbar smashed it apart, and Europa was legless below the thighs.

‘Watch for the wolf.’ gasped Felimid. He dropped the crowbar clattering down the hole. Then, seizing a torch, he lowered himself after the tool one-handed. He had but a couple more feet to drop, and he released his hold and landed lightly, slipping a little on the fallen rubble.

For a treasure chamber, the place looked inglorious. There were beetles and spiders, a choking musty smell, and great pale curtains of cobweb. They withered away when Felimid touched them with his flaring brand.

Torch gleam rested on an iron pole-ladder. Muscles cracking, he wrestled it into position. Men yelled above him. Louder yet sounded the maddened neighing of war-horses, and over all a heart-freezing howl. Gareth clambered down the ladder. ‘It’s come back,’ he said unnecessarily, lips pale.