The Hallowed Isle Book Two (14 page)

“Am I or am I not the king?”

Oesc, who had been repairing his bow in hopes that they might soon get some hunting, opened his door and peered out. That had sounded like Artor's voice, but he had never heard it so angry.

Now he could hear a murmur of other voices, soothing or remonstrating.

“Be still—you prattle at me as if I were a fractious child!”

It
was
Artor. Oesc set down the bow and went out to see what was going on. He found Cai leaning against a pillar, watching the king stride back and forth across the cracked stones of the courtyard.

“He's always been like this, even when we were boys,” said Cai. “He doesn't get mad often, but when he does, it's bad. He broke my nose and left me bruised for a week once when he thought I'd mistreated a horse, back when I was twelve and he was nine and I was a head taller than he.”

Oesc didn't ask whether it was true. Cai was heavy handed with most things; he broke weapons and wore out his mounts faster than other men.

“He needs to crack someone's head or take a woman,” Cai added, “but I don't suppose he will.”

Oesc nodded. He knew that Cai sometimes went to the whores who served the soldiers, and Cunorix found comfort with the Irish serving girls. Oesc himself had always feared to be rejected because he was a Saxon. What Artor's reasons for continence might be he did not know.

“What's set him off now?” He asked.

“The old men on the council. They want someone to sit on the throne and look handsome, not a king. Artor got mad when they voted to exempt all Church lands from taxation.”

“Does he want money?”

“Not for himself—for the troops up on the Wall. Your people have been quiet, but the Picts and the Scotti are always a threat, and all the regular army Britannia still has is up there. The landowners at least send men and supplies, but the Church expects to be protected for nothing.”

Artor's long stride had slowed, and the high color was beginning to leave his cheeks. “Can't they understand? The time to build up your dikes is before it floods. We need to maintain a fighting force that can deter invasion, and that means money.”

The placating murmur continued.

“I think God hears soldiers as well as priests. I have no quarrel with the Church, but its business is prayer, not politics, and not all in this land are Christian. Anyhow, that isn't the problem now. They wouldn't even listen to my reasoning! They as much as told me to run away and play, and I didn't—I couldn't—answer them!”

Oesc hid a smile. That's how it was for Saxon war-leaders most of the time. Except for the sword-thanes, vowed to stand by their chieftains till death, warriors served voluntarily, and felt free to argue. It amazed him sometimes that the Germans had been able to conquer as much as they had. But hunger was a powerful motivator. These Britons were too accustomed to safety. They had received a sharp lesson, but clearly it was easily forgotten. If they had been willing to pay the troops who protected them, Hengest would never have asked for land.

“If you could—if they would listen to you—how would you order Britannia?” he asked.

“With a strong government. Rome succeeded because there was strength at the center to make all the provinces help and defend each other. It failed because it got too big. Britannia is a good size for communications, with defined borders.”

“You mean to rule all the island?” asked Betiver.

“What about the Picts? asked Cai.

“What about the Saxons?” Oesc echoed.

“It seems to me,” Artor said slowly, “that when tribes or regions think too much about their own rights and practices and needs they fight their neighbors, and then they are easy prey for any better organized enemy who moves in. Julius Caesar conquered the British tribes because they could not work together. Your grandfather overran half the island because Vitalinus and Ambrosius would not make an alliance, and failed to keep it because your Saxon tribes would not accept a single high king. I know that rival emperors fought each other, but for most people, most of the time, within the empire there was peace.”

“But at what price?” asked Cunorix. “Your Romans leveled peoples as they leveled the ground for their fortresses. Is peace worth losing everything that makes you who you are?”

“Did I say I thought it would be easy?” Artor said ruefully. “I would be king for the Romans and the British, the men of Eriu who have settled on these shores and the Picts and even the Saxons, if they would accept me, each with their own customs, living in peace with their neighbors.”

“Foster-brother, you are crazy,” Cai shook his head pityingly. “Even the Lord Jesus could not make them all agree.”

“Jesus himself said his kingdom was not of this world, though some of our bishops seem to have trouble remembering it. What I am talking about requires an earthly king.”

“You certainly seem to have spent some time thinking about it—” Betiver said admiringly.

Artor shrugged. “Sitting through all those meetings, what else do I have to do? I know that the king has to be strong enough to defend the borders and keep people within them from killing each other as well. He should encourage trade and sponsor public works. All this requires taxes, which people do not want to pay. He must keep local chieftains from oppressing their own people, but give them enough freedom so they will support him. Maybe it
is
impossible—but if they would stop treating me like a child, I would try!”

“You have a magic sword. Does not that give you the authority?” asked Oesc.

“That's an
old
miracle,” Artor answered bitterly. “I need a new one to impress the princes—or maybe I am the one who needs a sign that this is what I am supposed to do. . . .”

Artor was still muttering when a workman appeared in the doorway, eyes bulging and muddy to the thighs.

“My lord, come quickly! They've found a head—some say it's a demon and some say it's a god. It was walled up, my lord, like a thing of power. They want to throw it into the river. I tried to tell them not to, but they wouldn't listen!”

“I know how you feel—” said the king. “Very well, I'll come. Perhaps the
people
will be willing to listen to me!”

“They call it the White Mount, my lord, but it's only just a little hill beside the water—”

Oesc saw Artor's step falter for a moment, and remembered suddenly where he had heard that name before. He hastened his own steps to catch up with them as the workman chattered on.

“The river's been rising, you see, and we was trying to drive in a few stakes to help hold the bank. And we hit something hard, though of course we didn't know that's what it was, and Marcellus says, ‘That's funny—' and then the ground just sort of fell away and we could see the big slabs of stone with the water gurgling round.”

Ahead a knot of people had gathered by the waterside. Someone saw the king coming, still dressed in the finery he had worn to the council, and shouted, and the crowd began to swirl towards them.

“I told them to leave it be, but Marcellus said that's good building stone, and he got a hook down the crack and pulled, and the whole slab came over, and then—”

But by then they were at the riverside, and Artor gestured for silence. As the workman had said, it was only a small hill, but it was crowned by three fine oak trees. Several ravens were sitting there, and as they approached, more came flying, calling as they circled the hill. Oesc felt a prickle of unease, and seeing Artor frown, knew that he too had felt the breath of the Otherworld. Cai stood with his arms folded, glaring back at the crowd.

People gave way before them. At the edge of the water the hill gaped open, the slab that had fallen revealing a small, square chamber, walled and roofed with stone. This was no Roman construction—the size of the stones reminded Oesc of etin-work he had seen. Water had seeped across the stone floor and around the stone block that stood in the midst of the chamber. On top of it was what appeared to be the head of a man of giant size, frozen in stone. Blank, almond, eyes stared out from either side of a long straight nose, the whole surrounded by masses of undulant hair.

Artor gazed at it for a moment, then bent to peer in. “Look, Cai—” he called. “It's pottery, not stone at all.”

“Don't touch it—” Cai began, but Artor was already entering the chamber.

“Nonsense,” he said over his shoulder. “If we leave it here it will be destroyed.” There was a general gasp as the king grasped the pot in both arms and turned to carry it outside.

As he brought it into the sunlight, the shouting subsided. “Bendeigid Brannos . . .” said someone, and the whispers became a murmur of awe.

Seen full on, the features reminded Oesc a little of Merlin, and yet, though the druid's brown mane had the same wildness, Oesc had never seen on his face such a look of majesty. But he did not have long to compare them. As the light fell full on the surface of the pot, a fine network of cracks began to ray out across it.

Artor fell to his knees in the mud, cradling the pot against his chest, but in moments the clay was crumbling. As it fell away, they saw that it held neither ashes nor treasure, but a single human skull. For a moment only they looked upon the great empty eye-sockets and the mighty jaws, and then the skull also began to crumble. Clay and bone fell in fragments through Artor's fingers into the water, and the current whirled them away.

The ravens came skirling down from the trees after them, lamenting, but above their cacophony rose a woman's scream—

“The Raven of Britannia is gone! Brannos the Blessed has abandoned us and we are lost!” Now there was an edge of hysteria in the hubbub of the crowd.

Artor looked down at his hands, still white with clay and bone, then he stood up again, and there was something in his face that made Oesc go cold inside, for in that moment it held the same look he had seen in the statue's eyes. With a single easy movement Artor leaped up onto the grass.

“People of Britannia, do not despair . . .” The king's voice was not loud, but it carried. “The ancient king protected you for many years, but his task is done. His remains have been released to find rest with the sea, his father, but his spirit remains with me.” He held out his arm, and the largest of the ravens, circling, alighted upon it.

“Do you see—the ravens recognize my right! Now it is I who shall be Brannos, and take upon me his duty. To the end of my life and beyond I will be your protector!”

“You are only a man, and one day your bones will be dust!” came a hoarse voice from the crowd.

Artor turned, and the people grew silent. “Keep this place holy, a sanctuary for the ravens, for I tell you now—so long as the ravens dwell on this hill, my spirit will ward Britannia!”

“Artor Brannos!” came the cry, “Artor the Blessed! Artor! Artor!” The echoes rang.

The people were all around Artor now, asking for his blessing, touching his hand. Oesc watched with wonder and pity in his heart. When he made his own dedication at the shrine it had only been for one lifetime. He sensed in this spontaneous avowal a commitment far more binding than whatever oath Artor had given to the Christian god when he was made king.

Eventually the people dispersed and the king was able to return to the palace. The raven flew back to the oak tree, but it was a long time before the strangeness left Artor's eyes.

“It was only a skull,” said Cai very softly as they passed through the gates. “And Brannos was only a legend.”

Oesc nodded. That might be true, but the moment during which that skull, whoever it belonged to, had been visible had been long enough for him to see that it was larger than the head of any ordinary man.

J
UST AFTER
B
ELTAIN, IN THE ELEVENTH YEAR OF
A
RTOR'S KING
-ship, Naitan Morbet, King of all the Provinces of the Picts, broke the peace that Leudonus had imposed upon him and came south in force. It was a year of barbarian victories. In Gallia, the new king, Chlodovechus, had led his Franks against Syagrius and defeated this last Roman at Augusta Suessionum. In Italia, the Ostrogoth, Theodoric, ruled as
magister militum
in the puppet emperor Zeno's name. And in Britannia, it seemed as if the time of the wild tribes had returned.

Before Leudonus could gather men to stop them, the Picts had swept around his eastern flank, across the tumbled stones where once the Romans had sought to establish a far northern frontier, and were swarming up the vale of the Cluta, burning everything in their path. King Ridarchus had warning enough to marshal his warband, but they were powerless against such a host and barely made it back to the safety of the Rock of Alta Cluta, where they took refuge, cursing. For this was no raid, but a carefully planned campaign. Leaving a swathe of destruction behind them, the Picts rolled up the old Roman road and through the passes, heading for the rich Selgovae lands and Luguvalium.

In Londinium, their first news came from a dust-covered courier whose horse fell dead beneath him as he pulled up before the palace. The scroll he bore was as clear a cry for help as anyone had ever heard from Leudonus. Indeed, commented Cai when he heard of it, ever since the British princes had chosen Artor over him as high king, the king of the Votadini had sent very few communications of any kind.

“Maybe so,” Artor had replied, “but he has been sending his taxes, and even if he had not, this challenges the whole of Britannia.”

Since the episode of Brannos's head, Artor had begun to assert himself. His counsellors protested, but they could not stop him from sending out messengers to speed past the fields of young grain, calling on the men of Eburacum and Deva and Bremetennacum and all the forts that were still manned along the Wall to gather to his banner at Luguvalium by Midsummer Day.