The Bretwalda (The Casere Book 4) (16 page)

Larena had been following the discussion. ‘Are you really intent on making Eldarr Aebeling – or Healdend – in Makuria?’

‘Like Svenben, he has no sons by his Axum bedda and if he wants Eldarr as his heir, then I see no reason why not. He is a good and capable man.’

‘Well, I can help you. If you open up the inheritance, then some of the Jarls might wish to press their claims as being superior to Eldarr’s as his blood is impure because an ancestor is a Priecuman theow connected to my house. My brother is the Jarl of Bakan. I presume that you know that Eldarr’s mother is the daughter of the Jarl of Rubutu and her mother is of my house – she was a half Priecuman theow.’ She pointed to Kasdis, ‘This silly girl is another descendant of my house. Her mother was Priecuman. Anyway, I’ve decided that I should go with you to Makurai. Eldarr is, after all, my kin’.

Svenben argued with his aunt but finally conceded. Conn was happy to have all the help he could get.

~oo0oo~

With everyone reasonably happy, Conn found something else nagging at him. He asked for Elfrea, who was standing at the door, and had her go and find the oldest Twacuman who had ever worked in the castle.

Svenben noted his question. ‘I don’t understand your concern?’

‘I’m looking for a cirice.’

‘A cirice? I’ve never heard of a cirice anywhere anymore. They have all been destroyed.’

It was another abrogation from ancient Ancuman society. Despite Ashtoreth’s dominance, she had no cirices anywhere in the Southern Isles.

Conn smiled a thin smile. ‘There is a reason for that. It is because Ishtar’s cirice is still here. Ashtoreth cannot go anywhere uninvited. It will be in the castle somewhere but it would have been walled up. Show me around your castle.’

The technology in the construction of the Ancuman stone castles was superior to anything he had seen elsewhere – except for his castles. They were a mixture of large stones and large trees and they had stood the test of time. Most castles were more than three stories above ground but also two stories below ground, and they were very broad – one stone castle was built next to another and some walls were sixteen foot thick.

After an hour walking around the inside and outside they were no further advanced. Gunvi and Elfrea found them. She had one of the oldest looking Twacuman that Conn had seen. He bowed respectfully and to Conn rather than the Aebeling.

‘Your arrival is long overdue
Feorhhyrde
. How can I help?’

‘I’m looking for Ishtar’s cirice. It is something that the Axum folgere would have had walled in – probably with windows that were also bricked in.’

‘Sounds like the wailing wall.’

‘The wailing wall?’

‘When I first started working here sometime women or girls would show up and start crying at a certain place outside the castle – the folgere would collect them and they would usually be dead within a few days – the initiations they suffered were not enough to become pure.’

‘What happened to the wall?

‘They finally built a building around it so that no one could access it. I can direct you to where I think it once was but it is over a hundred years ago and many more walls have been constructed to hide its whereabouts.’

‘Okay, we need to knock down the building – and I need workers to do that. Can we organize some?’

They both turned to Svenben. Conn asked the question. ‘You don’t mind if I demolish part of your castle do you?’

The Aebeling shrugged. ‘Do I have a choice?’

Conn was honest. ‘Sadly, no. The cirice must be found.’

With that the old man and the two young girls left them to organize workers. Svenben watched them go. ‘It is very disconcerting to have my own staff so willing to follow the instructions of others. So what building are we knocking down?’

‘The building at the west corner, it would seem.’

~oo0oo~

By mid-afternoon, the steward had organized a significant number of people around the west corner, and they stood waiting for instructions. Conn and the Aebeling stood looking at the dozen added on buildings to the side of the castle donjon.

‘So all of this has to go?’

‘Yes. When this is gone, I’m sure that we can find windows and get inside the Cirice and work our way out.’

Horse drawn carts were lining up and the order was given to start. Store houses had to have their goods removed before the buildings themselves could be dismantled and by the time they stopped for the day, they had still to start on the lean-to.

At supper time, Conn noticed that Kasdis was not her usual self. She was flushed and was breathing quickly; her already plunging cleavage seemed more plunging and she was obviously anxious. Conn sought out Kolbert.

‘So how attached are you to Kasdis?’

‘Attached – the woman is driving me insane! She is insatiable. Do you know anyone who wants to take her off my hands? Please!’

‘Actually I do. It is me.’

‘You – what do you want her for?’

‘Just a guess at the moment – but I think that she has a higher calling. We’ll find out tomorrow.’

Kasdis was delighted – she certainly had a short attention span when it came to men. After the short ceremony and exchange of ryals overseen by the Aebeling the “divorce” was complete, she raced away to collect her chattels to change rooms.

When Conn went to bed later that night she was already there, waiting, naked, and very eager.

After her immediate needs were sated, she lay on the silk sheets on the futons breathing heavily.

‘Marquis, I have yet to be satisfied by any one man. I have to say that you have gone closer than any man I have ever tried – and I have tried a lot. Sometimes more than one at a time.’

Conn was standing up, rummaging through his baggage. From inside one pouch, he selected a large white haligdom from his collection and turned around and unceremoniously handed it to her.

‘If you think I am finished, you are mistaken. Can you hold this for me please?’

Without thinking she took hold of the stone and almost passed out. Conn watched her recover her senses. She then started to cry, and Conn took her into his arms and held her close. By the time she had stopped crying, she was holding something else. She pulled him down towards her.

‘I see you are ready to start again.’

Finally sated, Kasdis eventually went to sleep. In the morning, he returned from training as the sun broke over the horizon. She was sitting up on the bed, naked except for the necklace that hung around her neck. It glowed. She looked up as he entered.

‘How did you know?’ she whispered.

‘It was obvious if you knew what you are looking for. How do you feel?’

‘Complete for the first time in my life – or at least I will be soon.’ She held up her arms, her naked ebony body glistening in the sunlight. ‘Come – I need to be initiated into Ishtar’s service.’

‘Again? Didn’t you get initiated last night?’

‘Perhaps, but now I know why I am doing what I am doing. This time we’ll do it properly.’

~oo0oo~

After two days of work the external buildings were all gone – and they could now see where the windows or rather arrow loops had been. These were expanded large enough to be able to send in the smallest of their workers. Inside, with torches, they searched for the shortest access from that room to the inside of the castle by tapping on walls. When they had an idea of where to start, they started removing hundred-year-old walls.

It took until the next day for them to have the added walls removed and they could see what they were looking for. Everyone went to the excavated rooms the next morning; doorways were all the way through and light streamed into what was the cirice. Conn knew that something was wrong – he suspected it during the excavation as no one had mentioned it previously. They all stood looking at the large room. Derryth stood with Conn and asked the obvious.

‘Where are the bodies?’

‘Somewhere – they have to be here somewhere.’ But they were nowhere – all the walls that remained were original walls. Conn walked around the room looking for something out of place. Kasdis provided the solution unwittingly.

‘The altar needs to be moved – it is not in the centre. Why would it not be in the centre’?

It was huge – made all of stone.

‘Of course – a cellar.’ Conn requested help and a dozen men put their shoulders to the altar and finally with the help of a few more and a few ropes it started to move. It took them twenty minutes to see the beginnings of the trap door and a full hour before it was able to be opened.

‘What is down there?’ Svenben asked.

‘Something not very pleasant.’ Kolbert described what they had found in Saba.

‘That is inhuman.’

‘Not many people have the ability to kill folgere without consequence.’ Kolbert added dryly.

‘There are always consequences,’ Conn added, ‘just sometime they are not death.’

The ladder that would take them below had to be replaced and when they finally made their way down stairs, it was as he’d expected. In the torch light they could see, neatly laid out on the floor, at least a dozen bodies; hundreds of years old; the necklaces the only thing extant other than the major bones.

When Kasdis arrived at the bottom, she promptly fainted, but Conn was expecting that and caught her. Kolbert watched in amusement.

‘You knew she was going to do that?’

‘I presumed. We need to get these bones to a pyre. They need to go on their way.’ Conn collected the necklaces, and watched as the bones were collected and put on to the canvas. When Kasdis recovered, she was still and remained that way until the pyre was built. It was set up quickly in the inner bailey and the bones placed on the wood. Svenben was given the duty of starting the pyre and they watched the bones being turned to ash.

Kasdis sat and wept as she watched. When it was over, she arose and asked if she might speak to Svenben alone for a minute. Curiously, he agreed and they walked back into the castle. She smiled as she passed Conn.

Larena watched the exchange in curiosity. ‘What is she doing?’

‘She is going to have Svenben initiate her as a folgere.’

‘Initiate? What does that involve?’

‘Some very intense but consensual fornication.’

She was shocked but smiled mischievously. ‘He’ll enjoy that. He is not the only one who enjoys intense and consensual fornication.’ She then startled herself by a realization. ‘Folgere? Kasdis is a folgere – I presume to Ishtar? How is that possible?’

‘She has always been – she just doesn’t know that. Her Priecuman blood and the emotional damage caused by the Axum folgere have messed with her mind – but the only thing that has kept her sane was her link to Ishtar – now she can hear what is being said to her.’

‘You can hear Ishtar?’ She laughed offhandedly.

‘No – or some reason, she doesn’t speak to me – but I sometimes hear the rest of them. Ashtoreth, I don’t speak to as all she does is try to kill me. Of course, only Ishtar and Ashtoreth are in Kishdah. The rest are in Sytha and Meshech. But I can feel Ishtar.’

Larena stopped smiling. ‘You are serious aren’t you? You speak to Gyden.’

‘The hardest part is getting them to shut up.’ Conn held up the dozen haligdoms as they softly glowed. ‘As you can see, Ishtar is getting her strength back. Soon others will come in search of these.’

She brushed up close as they went back into the castle and to the hall.

‘Now, speaking again of intense and consensual fornication, I’m feeling that there might be an opportunity for that sometime very soon – if you would care to follow me.’

~oo0oo~

Three days after his arrival, Conn had completed a series of meetings with the Aebeling, Ingesten, and the Folctoga of the Aebeling’s guard, and they had set up a plan to visit every Jarl in Himyar to rid his demesne of “vermin”.

‘The only issue,’ Svenben pointed out, ‘is Olbia. It is the closest demesne to Axum and has a large number of wiga and folgere. More than usual at the moment. The Jarl was complaining to me just a few days ago. It would be difficult for our wiga alone to defeat them.’

‘How far is it?’

‘Fifteen days by road. Five by boat.’

‘Very well, send an invitation to the Jarl that you demand him to attend a feast to celebrate the anointment of your eldest son as your heir. Tell him that all the folgere in Himyar have been executed – roasted alive – and that any folgere who come with him will be served as the main course. Also that all Jarls who do not attend will be considered traitors.’

He looked at him in amazement. ‘They will think I’m mad.’ Svenben added. ‘They will not respond.’

‘Yes, they will. The folgere know that something very bad has happened here – they feel it but have no explanation. They will send the fyrd.’

With the invitation having left by boat, Conn marched west with his fyrd to wait so he had the advantage of choosing the battle ground.

~oo0oo~

Derryth and Wilric had returned from scouting.

‘Perhaps a thousand men. A small number of cavalry but mostly infantry. They should be here tomorrow evening.’