Gemini Thunder (28 page)

Thirty minutes later with the saddlebags safely hidden, he was back in the great hall downing a large pot of mead in one go. Around him the celebrations were in full swing, and no one seemed to have missed him. The rest of Jack Cat’s Renegades could go find their own gold—this belonged to him.

Since interesting things happened to him in castles, he might even buy one of his own.

The morning after the celebration, Twilight returned his family and Guinevere back to the safety of Avalon. Having managed the meeting with Gode and Edward de Gaini without any problems and eager to get back to the war with the Viking, Desmond stayed at Tintagel Castle.

Classen had eventually come round and, apart from a large, egg-shaped bump on the side of his head, was alright. If anything, Hywel’s head was worse from too much mead. Alfred decided to let Twilight deal with the robbery of the saddlebags, which, unbeknown to the thief, had been full of false gold coins that would fade away to nothing in a matter of days.

That afternoon as Jack Cat rubbed his horse down in the camp set up for his men just outside the castle, Twilight appeared alongside him. The rest of his men were still sleeping off the effects of the free mead and were spread around the place in a mixture of slumbering poses.

The look on Jack’s face when the astounder appeared alongside him was surprise mingled with just a little guilt. He quickly wiped it away and smiled a greeting. Twilight got straight to the point.

‘There’s a man in the castle with a large bump on his head looking for you,’ he said quietly. ‘Not a man to fall foul of, I should say, even for a fighting man like you.’

‘Oh?’ Jack feigned surprise, a sinking feeling running down his body. ‘Well, whoever he is, tell him I’m here if he wants me.’

‘Jack, the three saddlebags you stole did not have any gold in them. They were decoys full of false coins made up by me to fade away to nothing after a couple of days. We knew it was only a matter of time before someone tried to steal them. That much gold is a powerful temptation, especially to men like you who have lived by the ability to take what they want. You will see what I mean when you next go to that rock you buried the saddlebags under up on the headland there.’

Twilight pointed toward the spot Jack had buried what he had thought was the gold.

Jack’s face went through all the emotions of surprise, recognition of the truth, disappointment, hatred, and finally a resigned, crestfallen acceptance.

‘I should have known it,’ he mumbled. ‘So what happens now? The king hangs me from the nearest tree, I suppose.’

‘He ought to. He’s asked me to handle the matter for him.’

Jack stepped away from the horse.

‘So what are you going to do?’

The astounder fixed Jack with his black opaque eyes.

‘I, too, might put a jute rope around that thick, stupid neck of yours.’

Jack reddened at the insult.

‘If you didn’t have sorcery to protect you, I’d kill you for that.’

‘Would you, Jack? Then try this.’ Twilight leaned toward him and slapped him hard across the cheek. To a fighting man like Jack Cat it was the supreme insult. As his men began to stir around them, Jack went for his sword. Twilight stood in front of him smiling as Jack slashed and hacked at him. Each time he met nothing but fresh air as the astounder swayed and bobbed away from the glittering blade. To goad Jack on a little he slapped him a few more times across the cheek. By now all his men were fully awake and watching. Finally, gasping for breath, Jack stopped, dropped his sword, and bowed his head, a beaten and humiliated man.

‘Now I’m going to tell you something, Jack Cat, and I don’t want you or your men here to ever forget it,’ the astounder said, waving his arm around to include all of them. ‘That money you thought you stole last night is the entire war chest of the king. Its purpose is to provide him with men and supplies for the life-and-death struggle against the invader. So far you have been a part of that and been paid fairly for your work as well as receiving my protection. If you or anyone else steals that gold, the fight against the invader is finished. No gold means no men, no supplies, no army . . . no Wessex. The king would be finished, and the Celtic nation would be finished. Had you got away with it, your greed would have handed the Viking victory. Without any further fighting.’

He paused to let the message sink in. Jack still stood with his head down.

‘You are mercenaries who only fight for money. The paymaster doesn’t worry you. The credo is death, anyone’s death. You are shaped by the times we live in. I understand that and so does the king—it is not a problem. Jack Cat, I’m going to give you another chance. Instead of hanging you from a tall tree, the punishment you undoubtedly deserve, and scattering these men far and wide in the countryside like the leaderless rabble they were before you took over, I’m going to put you back to work doing what you do best. I didn’t save you from the Viking in order to later hang you. You and your men here,’ he waved his hand around at the watching renegades, ‘are an invaluable aid to the cause.’

He paused again.

‘You men,’ he said to the surrounding renegades, ‘have done nothing wrong, although some of you would have done if allowed.’ He looked straight at Patch, Arrow, and Bullwhip. ‘Jack, you have suffered enough here, today, at my hands. Although you are a scavenging thief, you are also a proud and fearless warrior who, in other circumstances, I would be pleased to call a friend. It will take some time to get over this, but you’ll come through.’

It was the longest speech he’d ever made. The long magus was right, you have to watch these patriotic kings and their causes. They have a habit of dragging you in.

He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, and for the first time since he’d dropped his sword, Jack looked up, his hard face working with emotion.

Twilight spoke again to all of them, briefly.

‘The next time we face the Viking we do so as brothers in arms.’ Then he was gone.

‘The young monk Bede has asked if he might have a word with you,’ Desmond said as they walked along the beach below the castle. With the tide out they had shed their sandals and walked barefoot through the cold, foam-speckled sand with occasional waves reaching their feet. The trail in the sand behind them was curious. Venefici leave no footprints, and neither do they have a shadow, no matter how strong the sun is. Only Desmond’s footprints showed in the soft, rapidly filling sand.

‘He was talking to Rawnie at the king’s celebration and heard that you had visited Lindisfarne with Merlin. Bede comes from around that way somewhere.’

Twilight cast his mind back to the day the long magus and he had stood on a similar beach of sand called Sandham Cove watching the causeway to Lindisfarne Island slowly emerge from the sea.

‘Fine. Is that him sitting behind that rock at the far end of the beach?’

‘Could be. I can’t see great distances and around corners like some people,’ Desmond said with a chuckle. ‘But he did say he would be on the beach this morning and hoped you could meet him here.’

‘Manipulator.’ Twilight grinned.

With his hands tucked into the wide sleeves of his brown robe, the figure of Bede came toward them, a smile of greeting on his open, chubby face. He was a round man of medium height of no more than twenty-five winters.

‘Vive vale, veneficus
,’ said the monk, wishing Twilight a long life.

‘Sib tibi terra levis, Bede,’
replied Twilight, saying that he hoped the earth was lying lightly upon Bede. Then, ‘That is the exact greeting used by the monk Aidan to my master, Merlin, when we visited the monastery at Lindisfarne.’

‘Aaahh,’ said Bede. ‘Yes, you have met Aidan. That, among other matters, is what I wanted to talk to you about. As for the greeting, as you will know it is the standard Christian way of showing peace and goodwill.’ He gestured along the beach. ‘May I walk with you for a while?’

‘Of course.’

Bede fell into step beside them.

‘A walk on the beach is sweet pleasure compared to toiling in the barley fields,’ he said. ‘These hands are not used to such labour.’ He held out two small pink hands.

‘Ex granis fit acervus
, eh, monk?’ Twilight smiled. Then, for Desmond, who was mouthing the Latin in an attempt to translate. ‘Many grains make a heap.’

‘Fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt,’
Bede said, laughing, and following Twilight’s example translated for Desmond. ‘The Fates lead the willing and drag the reluctant.’ He turned his two small pink hands over.

‘These are fashioned around the holding of a quill pen or prayer sheet.’

‘You are obviously not from Wessex,’ said Desmond. ‘Your accent is very different.’

‘I am a stranger to these parts and was on a pilgrimage to Glastonbury when I got caught up in the Viking invasion.’

‘You are from Lindisfarne?’

‘I was born in a small place near the holy island of Lindisfarne called Jarrow and spent my first ten years as a junior monk in the monastery there. Aidan came to visit and preach occasionally.’

‘I liked him,’ said Twilight. ‘A small, round little man, not unlike yourself, with a great big beaming smile, especially when the long magus turned one of his resident monks into a goat!’

Bede chuckled. ‘That act became famous all over the northeast. The monk in question, Father Boniface, became a celebrity because of it. Unfortunately, Aidan died about a year after your visit.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. As monks go he seemed special. What happened to the great magnum opus he was working on called

Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum?’

‘Tantus amor scribendi,’
sighed the monk. ‘So great a passion for writing. I have taken it on, although it could be some time before I get back to it.’

‘Aidan referred to Merlin as an ‘apostate veneficus.’ You should know that I also fall into that category with regards to not only your faith, but all others as well.’

‘I am aware of that. Your good wife, the princess Rawnie, referred to it when we spoke at the king’s celebration. I also understand from the king that he, too, has reservations, having seen what your wonderful command of the enchantments can achieve. That is the question I would like to explore with you.’

Twilight sighed deeply and then pointed to a rock nearby.

‘Let’s sit. This could take some time.’

Desmond made his excuses and left. A heavy ‘Christianity versus the Enchantments’ session he did not need.

He, too, already knew the truth of it.

Men continued to stream into Tintagel Castle to join King Alfred’s army. They came with their wives and families, in small groups and alone. All the able-bodied men were taken on as soldiers and the women and children put in the fields alongside the monks or in field units preparing food or making uniforms. Smiths were set to making weapons and carpenters carts. Some of the men had experience of fighting and some not; some were leaders and some sheep. One man who stood out as a leader was William Loy.

Tall, taciturn, and heavily scarred from previous battles in Gaul, he seemed to command respect. He’d fought as battle leader in Brittany for an old Kentish king called Howel and later fought with the Franks against the invading Visigoths. Edward de Gaini quickly recognized his prowess and experience and put him to work training the new recruits. Within no time he had whipped several hundred of them into shape and asked de Gaini if he had something a little more challenging for him. Good men like Will Loy were few and far between, so de Gaini made him his adjutant, someone to carry the battle leaders’ instructions to where they were needed, act as his eyes and ears, set up the training programs, and work with him on strategy and planning for the coming battle.

Twilight had been busy keeping watch on Jack Cat’s Renegades. Following his altercation with the magic-maker, Jack had sulked for a few days. Nursing his wounded pride in the seclusion of his tent and refusing to come out, he’d finally had a visit from Patch, Arrow, and Bullwhip. Showing patience and understanding way beyond anything they ever manifested before, the three mercenaries asked their leader to come back and take his rightful place at the head of the Renegades that bore his name. Playing hard to want wasn’t Jack’s strong point, and he quickly capitulated. The following day they set off once again for the Combe Castle area to harry and disrupt the invaders.

As the snows of Michelmas began to settle around Tintagel Castle and the Christian monks and priests prayed and celebrated, Jack Cat’s Renegades, assisted by Twilight with Desmond by his side, began the first raid of their second term. On the far corner of the Combe estate within sight of the castle, the new Viking arrivals had built a settlement, a place Guthrum called ‘Norgstal Combe.’ The new hovels housed over five hundred women and children and their husbands. This was the model Viking settlement that Guthrum hoped to replicate all over Wessex and then into the rest of the country.

Jack’s first task was to raze it to the ground.

Breaking his force into four groups of fifty, Jack employed his favourite diversionary tactic of hitting them in four different places at once in the early hours of the morning. The first group, led by Arrow, attacked Combe Castle itself with volley after volley of flaming longbow shafts. At the same time Bullwhip’s group set fire to the grain stores on the opposite side of the estate, and Sam Southee’s men stampeded the cattle in the pens next to the river and set the empty pens alight. With the entire estate backlit by an orange and yellow circle of flames, Jack, Patch, and their men added to the inferno by charging into the newly built model settlement and torching every building. They didn’t notice anything at first, but gradually it dawned on them that there were no inhabitants of the so-called model settlement. No one ran out of the hovels they were burning; not even a dog barked. Whilst the chaos their other three groups had started raged around the estate, nothing moved in the burning model settlement.