The Hallowed Isle Book Four (15 page)

“
Medrautus filius Artorius.
” He tapped his own breast, ignoring the little murmur of reaction from his men. “So, we have a king's son to ransom,” he added in the Saxon tongue.

“A second son only,” said Gipp in the same language. “You will not get much for me.”

“Oh, I will get something—” Medraut smiled sweetly. “Where are the others?”

“The rest of you swine!” snarled Creoda when the prisoner did not answer.

“Gone by now, full-laden—” The Northman grinned. “They left us six days ago, but we were still hungry.”

“This time, you have bit off more than you can chew,” said Creoda, but the news had clearly relieved him.

Medraut nodded. “Who are your best seamen? They shall take your ship back to the North with word to your people. The rest of you will come with us to Camulodunum. Creoda, will you set up a rotation of guards?”

“Gladly! And send a messenger to my father.” He favored Medraut with an approving smile. “You fight like one of our own, son of the Bear. We have done good work today!”

The Britons and their Anglian allies moved slowly southward, for some of the Northmen were wounded and could not go fast. But the weather had cleared and the roads were beginning to dry. With all their enemies accounted for, they could afford to relax.

On the third evening, knowing that the next day's march would bring them to Camulodunum, Medraut took a skin of ale and sat down beside his prisoner.

“Tomorrow we will come to Camulodunum,” he said, offering the ale.

“A Roman town—who now lives there?” Gipp answered in the same tone. If he harbored fears for his future, he was doing well at hiding them.

“Anglians. The town was falling into ruin. Icel sent one of his chieftains to hold the place by the terms of his treaty with King Artor.”

Gipp lifted an eyebrow. “I thought the Anglians conquered this land.” He drank, and passed the skin of ale back again.

“Then why do I ride with them?” asked Medraut. “Artor defeated Icel's army twenty years ago. But by then, all the Britons had fled and there was no one to till the land. So Artor took the Anglians into his kingdom, to protect it from raiders.”

“Like me. . . .” Gipp grinned. “They do not do so well, eh?”

“They have mostly settled the richer lands inland, not the coasts. Is this land much like your own?”

Gipp laughed. “It would be hard for a place to be more different. Halogaland is all mountains, with little pockets of pasture clinging above the narrow fjords. This land—so flat—” He gestured at the mixed marsh and woodland around them. “Seems very strange. But there are no rocks. A man could grow anything in this soil.”

“Have you seen many lands?” Medraut wiped his mouth and passed the ale-skin back again.

“Oh, there are always kings who look for good fighting men. I marched with Ela when he attacked the Geats, after they took in the banished sons of his brother. He killed Heardred, the Geatish king, but Adgils and Admund escaped him. They say Beowulf rules there now, and he is a hero of whom there are already many tales. I think there would be little profit in following Ela now.”

“It is profit you look for, not glory?” Medraut rested his forearms on his knees, considering the other man.

Gipp's high-boned face creased in a smile. “They say in my country that cattle and kinsmen will die, and only a man's fame live after. But I have won my name in battle, and it seems to me that so long as I live in this world I will need the cattle and the kin. I would not be sorry to settle down with a plump wife and a good farm. But at home there is little land.”

“And that is why you think your father will not ransom you?

Gipp shrugged. “A man cannot escape his wyrd.”

“Well—” Medraut got to his feet, motioning to the Northman to keep the ale-skin. “Perhaps we will find some other use for you.”

The bright, hot weather of June was smiling on the land when Medraut came back to Camalot. The fortress was full of men and horses—Guendivar had called the princes of Britannia to council, and their retinues sat drinking and dicing in stable and ramparts and hall.

He had stayed with the Anglians long enough to get Icel's agreement to settle Gipp at the mouth of the Arwe, north of Camulodunum, to hold the place for the Anglians as they held the whole of Anglia for Artor. But the Northman knew whom he had to thank for his good fortune. Medraut had not decided what use he might make of the warrior, but it never hurt to have the gratitude of a good fighting man.

Medraut was twenty-six years old. At his age, his father had already been king for ten years. He himself had spent the equivalent years with Cynric, and what had they gotten him?

The sons of the Saxons are not the only ones who dream of glory
, he thought ruefully as he gazed at the grizzled locks of the princes who sat at council in the great roundhouse with their sons behind them.
Where, in this empire Artor is building, is there a place for me?

The queen had summoned the assembly to set the levies for this year's taxes. It was not going well.

“Ten years! Next year it will be ten years since the king was sailing oversea!” exclaimed Cunobelinus, his northern accent striking with a painful familiarity in Medraut's ear. “ ‘Tis as long, surely, as it took the Greeks to take the city of Troy!”

“And will that be the end of it? Or will Artor, like Ulysses, be another ten years returning home?” Peretur echoed him.

“The seas that separate our shores from Gallia are neither so great nor so treacherous as the Mare Internum,” the queen said tartly, “but even if it were so, when Artor returns he will find me as faithful as Penelope.”

“My lady—no one doubts your fidelity,” Eldaul of Glevum said gently, “only the need for it. The king of Britannia belongs at home.”

“Oh, he may bide abroad for another ten years with my good will and conquer all the way to the gates of Roma,” put in Paulinus of Viroconium, “so long as he does not require my taxes! Let the men of Gallia support his army if they desire his presence so greatly.”

There was a murmur of agreement from many of the others.

“We have done well enough without him, these past
years!” said someone at the other end of the hall. Medraut peered through the shadows and recognized the prince of Guenet.

Cunobelinus turned towards him, glaring. “But without the king, how long will the Pax Artoria be lasting? Drest Gurthinmoch has honored his treaty, but a new generation of warriors is growing up on tales of the riches of Britannia. How long will he be able to hold them? If he thinks that Artor has abandoned us, how long will he try?”

“The king has not abandoned us!” exclaimed Guendivar, two spots of color burning in her cheeks.

Perhaps not, my lady
, thought Medraut,
but he certainly appears to have abandoned
you! She was very beautiful in her anger. He thought with distaste of his mother, who had also had to rule alone when Leodonus began to fail. But Morgause had lusted after power.

What do you lust for, Guendivar
, he wondered, gazing at her,
or do you even know
? Last night he had dreamed of Kea, the Pictish slave who had been his first woman. Like the queen, she had been sweetly rounded, with hair like amber in the sun. At the time, he had thought her beautiful, but compared to Guendivar's radiance, her light was only an oil-lamp's flame.

“Artor asks for our taxes—for gold and for grain—” Peretur of Eburacum was speaking now. “And for the defense of Britannia we have never denied him—” His grim gaze swept the assembly, as if tallying those who
had
sometimes refused their support, even during the Saxon wars. “But I am loathe to give up resources which, if the Picts break the Border, we will need ourselves!”

The babble of response was like the roar of a distant sea. Guendivar surveyed the assembly, cheeks flaming with anger, and rose to her feet, staring them down until silence fell once more. But when she spoke, her voice was calm.

“Clearly, there are many factors here to be considered, and we have sat long at our debate. Hunger is not the best counselor. Let us go out to the meal that my cooks have been preparing, and meet again when the sun begins its descent once more.”

As he followed the others from the roundhouse, Medraut continued to watch the queen. Though her women had come out to escort her, she seemed very much alone, her brow furrowed with the anxiety she had been too proud to show in the hall.

Britannia may be able to endure without Artor
, he thought then,
but if he does not return, what will happen to the queen
? His gaze followed her as she entered her own quarters, and he blinked, his vision for a moment overlaid with memory of the dream in which little Kea had lain in his arms.

“Medraut!”

At the shout, he turned, and saw the heir to Viroconium hurrying towards him. Martinus was a puppy, with an open face and eager eyes, but he might have his uses. Medraut paused, arranging his features in a pleasant expression.

“I hear that you fought wild savages from Lochlann last spring. What were they like? How many did you kill?”

With some effort, Medraut maintained his smile. Martinus' voice was both penetrating and loud; others were turning, younger men for the most part, second sons and chieftains' heirs. He saw Caninus of Glevum, who was a good fighter already, and the two cousins from Guenet, Cunoglassus and Maglocun. In another moment, a group was gathering, and Medraut grinned.

“They are fierce fighters indeed, but no monsters. If you like, I will tell you the tale. . . .”

Whatever he might say was bound to be more interesting than the political debates of their elders, thought Medraut as he led his audience to the shade below the palisade.

“You all know that we defeated the Anglians twenty years ago, and gave them lands in the east that our own people had abandoned; on condition that they should defend them.”

“My grandfather says the king betrayed his own people, making that treaty—” said Marc'h, a lanky thirteen-year-old who was the son of Constantine. “He should have killed them all.”

“Huh—
your
grandfather started the last Saxon war!” someone else replied.

“Perhaps—” Medraut cut in once more, “but then the land
would have been empty, and these same Northmen you call savages might have come instead, and been much harder to deal with. The Saxons, and the Anglians, are not bad people— I have lived among them, and I know. They become more like us the longer they live in our land.”

“They hold a quarter of Britannia,” muttered Marc'h. “My grandfather says they will try to gobble down the rest of it one day.”

Medraut shook his head. “Not if we are strong and stand together. Not if their kings see an advantage in being our allies. I fought shoulder to shoulder with Icel's son, Creoda, and now he calls me friend.”

“The campaign—tell us—” came a babble of voices, and Medraut began his tale. He did not exaggerate, or at least, only a little. The men of Demetia who had ridden with him could disprove any claims that were too extravagant, after all. But he had learned among the Saxons that a man owed it to himself to claim his victories.

“And so I have the gratitude of both the Anglians and the Northmen!” Medraut allowed himself a small smile. “There is still glory to be won without ever leaving Britannia.”

“The lord Peretur says that the Picts are sure to start a new war soon,” said a young guardsman from Eburacum. “He says if the king does not come back soon, Britannia will be as it was in the time of the Vor-Tigernus, when the princes fought each other and left the land at the mercy of its enemies.”

“It is true,” Medraut said thoughtfully. “We need a strong king, who will put Britannia first. . . .” He stopped, seeing a sudden doubt in some of their faces, while others nodded agreement. Had he meant to hint at rebellion? He hardly knew himself, but the seed was planted now.

“And what if Artor does not come back? What if he and your brothers and all the experienced fighting men are killed by the Franks?” Martinus cried.

“We still have the queen—” answered Medraut. “During these past years, will any deny that she has governed well?”

“But she cannot lead an army—”

“Perhaps not, though I seem to remember that the queens
of our people did just that, when the Romans were conquering this land. But she does not need to. I come from the North, where they still understand that the queen is the source of sovereignty. If the high king falls, or fails, it is for Guendivar to choose a lord to lead this land.”

A.D.
514

T
HE YEARLY LEVIES OF GOLD AND GRAIN WERE DUE AT THE
end of summer, when the corn harvest was in. Each year since the king had departed, it seemed to Guendivar, the totals had diminished. Were the princes lying in their reports, or had Artor's absence really drained the fertility from the land? In the North, folk held that the soil's productivity depended on the queen. That was no help, she thought, staring at the smoke-stained plaster of the wall. How could the land be fecund when the queen was barren?

“Do you have the tally from Dumnonia?” asked Medraut from the other side of the room.

“Such as it is—” she answered. “According to this, there is scarcely a stalk of grain in Kernow, and hardly a fish in the sea.” She leaned from her chair to hand him the scroll.

Putting another table in the room for him to use had made for cramped quarters, but Guendivar did not grudge it. Medraut had a sharp brain, and his mother, whatever his feelings about her might be, had trained him well. In the past year he had turned into an able assistant.

And now he was more necessary than ever. The queen felt her eyes filling with remembered sorrow. For the past year
Cai had insisted on continuing to work even when it was clear he was in pain, and just after midsummer his noble heart had given way at last. She still missed his dour, steady support, but at least Medraut was taking on some of his labor.