Authors: Paul Bannister
A Fragile Peace (12 page)
Firelight reflected off the clouds showed us where Myrddin had made camp, some distance from the Stones, and we rode towards it through the dusk with relief, stiff and sore from the journey. The Druid was sitting on a camp stool, warming his long fingers at the fire, and he rose casually, brushing at his robe, unsurprised at our swift arrival.
He greeted us cheerfully, which seemed ill-suited to the occasion, embraced Guinevia, who stood silent and seeming indifferent and even nodded cheerily to Candless, which was out of character for the sorcerer. Then he led me aside as the servants bustled to prepare food and bedding for us and our mounts.
“Everything is ready,” he said happily. “We will do the ceremony at first light in three days’ time, when the auspices are right. I understand that Guinevia has the boy’s tunic?” What that had to do with anything I did not know, but I was aware that she had two small parcels at her saddle bow and kept them by her side when she was not on horseback. One, I knew, contained the partial skull of King Kinadius. The other, I had heard through one of Guinevia’s maids, held the tunic. “She does not let either thing be far from her hand, lord,” the woman had told me, as I dropped a piece of gold into her paw. I was slightly ashamed to spy on my lover, but a king has to do things that ordinary men do not.
“She has it.”
“Good, it may be useful” was all the Druid would say.
I dismissed the matter.
“Can you work your magic on her?” I asked, pleading as I had never done before. “Persuade her that this step,” I could not bring myself to elaborate what step I meant, “tell her that she does not need to die?”
Myrddin shook his head. “She wants to kill herself anyway,” he said coolly. “May as well use that sacr
ifice for something necessary.”
I turned away, angered, before I vented at him. Myrddin rarely treated me as his king, and he was too useful to me to risk punishing him. I would have to find another means, another piece of leverage to get my way.
We did not see much of the sorcerer or his slaves for the next two days, for he moved away from the camp and slept elsewhere, presumably doing his magic. Guinevia was not involved in them, and remained in her tent until the evening before the planned ceremony, when the wizard arrived looking pleased with himself. “I brought mutton for our dinners,” he announced, adding “and wine,” at my sour glance.
We sat in semi-darkness near the fire, Guinevia and I picking at our last meal. I could hardly take my eyes off her, even drawn and pale as she looked, she was lovely in the firelight and my whole being ached at the thought of the morning’s bloody work. I tried to coax her into words, but she shook her head and looked aside, then slipped quietly away to her own pavilion. I spent the night under the cold stars and the bright full moon, wondering where my soul would be tomorrow, if I would walk with the Hunter or stand beside the Bull.
And then the hours had slid by, the wolf light spread, and the time had come.
Guinevia emerged from her pavilion and my breath stopped. She wore a dress of silk the colour of cornflowers and had laced her barley-gold hair with simple daisies. All she said was “I am ready,” and her eyes pierced my heart. At that moment I knew that once she had gone, I would follow. I touched first Exalter where he hung at my hip,
then checked my punching dagger in its sheath behind my neck. Last, I put my thumb to the place under my sternum where the dagger would enter. If Guinevia had to die, so would I.
Soon, we were summoned and in the growing half-light, we walked our horses behind Myrddin, imposing in his scholar’s gown, tapping out the paces with his lignum staff, the mile or so to the Stones. My tribune Celvinus and Bishop Candless followed, our only escort, but I noted that two of Myrddin’s slaves already stood among the Stones with flutes in their hands.
We dismounted, and Myrddin led us through the outer crescent of giant sandstone sarsens, some of which were three-pieced trilithons, one slab balanced on top of two uprights. He dismissed Candless and Celvinus, gesturing them to remain with our mounts. Guinevia and I continued, humbly following the Druid down the avenue of bluestones that led to an altar slab. Above it towered the heelstone that was the focal point of the whole open air temple.
At a gesture from the sorcerer, the flutists, who were on opposite sides of the stone circle, began to play a single, continuous, monotonous note and Myrddin waved us to the altar stone, where a Roman glass flask of dark fluid was standing. He handed it first to Guinevia, indicating that she should drink, then passed it to me. I took a deep draught. It was bitter, tasting of chestnut, musky like a forest floor, I thought.
Now, the sorcerer was indicating we should follow him, and he led us several times around the lintelled circle, where my head began to play tricks on me. It seemed we were passing through walls of air, invisible battlements and barriers, and the stones were pipers’ stones that sent regular waves and rollers of music, sounds that went loud and soft in some unknowable patterns.
The first rays of Sol were shining now, and the dust from our footsteps rose to shimmer in visible standing walls of sound and pressure. I could feel a drumlike pounding on my ears, a sense of thunder and an odd sort of stillness as if I were in a bubble and dissociated from everyday life.
Myrddin led us back to the altar stone where now, placed by some unseen hand, lay the wonderful nameless sword that carried icons of both the old and the new religions, and, next to it, the gleaming golden Torc of Caratacus. I touched Exalter’s hilt and glanced to see who had put them there. Nobody was in sight.
Now Myrddin was nudging us to turn and face the rising Sol as he climbed over the horizon. I was squinting into his orange rays and noting a chill breeze that foretold to my sailor’s instinct a coming squall, when a dazzling burst of white light blinded me and involuntarily, I turned away. Through the haze I saw Guinevia two paces away, lit like a goddess in the same fierce light and Myrddin, his head turned and eyes carefully averted from the brilliance, unfolding the blood-stiffened white linen of Milo’s wedding tunic.
My mind was numbed, maybe by the drugged drink, or by the fluting sound waves or the burst of sight-stealing brilliance, but I had to wonder how the wizard had managed to appropriate the tunic from Guinevia. As I looked numbly on, he laid it on the altar stone next to the Torc and sword, and I saw him produce the crowning half-skull I had lopped from Kinadius’ head and lay that alongside.
Now Myrddin was speaking, declaiming in sonorous tones of what seemed to be Celtic, and at the words Guinevia sank to her knees. Some Druid enchantment, I supposed, and she tugged at my belt to pull me down, too. Myrddin’s voice changed to a deeper tone and he spoke in British.
“I am Myrddin, son of no father, sired by a spirit, sent here to restore your hold on your ancient lands,” he said, “I walk with kings in high places, but I am a servant of the old gods, to whom I make this offering.
“Here is the sacred Torc of Caratacus, royal father of Britain, and here we also offer a sword of two religions, old and new, symbol of the union of the past and future in this island.
“And further symbol of our dedication to the old gods is this offering of royal blood. The Lady Guinevia is willing to give her blood now, but it may be more pleasing to you if she continues her work as a Druid and priestess. Instead, we offer two tokens of blood royal: that of the prince Milo, contained here in his wedding tunic; and that of the Pictish king Kinadius, whose skull is here and whose soul wanders in torment across the Underworld.
“If these offerings are suitable, please send us some sign.”
With that, the sorcerer stepped away from the altar stone. His gown flapped as a breeze stiffened and I sensed as much as felt a hint of rain on my cheek. Then came the unexpected.
A booming roll of thunder reverberated among the stones, not once, but three times, distinct and spaced. The gods, I knew, were speaking to us and I stretched myself facedown and prostrate under the shadow of the heelstone. A minute passed, a cold rain started to fall and Myrddin spoke.
“It’s done,” he said, and he sounded weary. “Guinevia, my dear, please stand up. The gods accept your willingness to die, but they do not want the sacrifice yet. The blood of your son and of his murderer is sufficient. They have spoken to us, and that is what they say.”
I looked at the emotions crossing her face. She had prepared herself for death. Now she was being told to resume her life. More, the acceptance of the sacrifices meant that the old gods would again extend their protection over Britain. I took her hand. “Milo did not lose his life for no purpose,” I said gently. “He did what the Jesus god did, and paid for the redemption of Britain with his own blood.”
She shook her head. “I am not going to die today,” she said, and her pentagram ring glowed with quiet magic. I slipped my cloak over her shoulders as the rain grew heavier. “Better stay dry, then,” I said, leading her away. “You don’t want to catch a chill.”
Myrddin waited until Arthur and Guinevia had rejoined an awed Candless and Celvinus where they stood with the horses, outside the circle of the Stones and the four were well on their way back to camp. When they were obscured by the moving skeins of rain, he called over the two flute players and sent them to where a third slave crouched hidden beyond the megaliths with an angled array of polished bronze mirrors. “That was a close thing,” the wizard muttered. “If that rain had come a little sooner there wouldn’t have been enough sun to reflect and they wouldn’t have been dazzled.”
“Still, the thunder was good.” He waved, and the fourth slave, the dark-complected Pict, eased himself out of the opening of the burial barrow where he had been stationed for hours. He carried with him a thin sheet of bronze the size of a large shield. The man grinned at Myrddin and flexed the sheet several times, creatin
g a booming noise like thunder. “Stop that, fool,” said the sorcerer. “They might hear! Put it back inside.”
The bronze sheet returned to the barrow’s interior, the Pict began replacing the stones and turf to cover the entrance again. “Wait, wait!” Myrddin called. “Put these inside first,” and he carried the torc and sword to the barrow.
“Don’t close it up, fellow,” he said impatiently, “You have to put the mirrors in there as well.”
The sorcerer supervised the slaves’ work, watched as they carefully rebuilt the stones that blocked the barrow entrance, and brought back from its hiding place and replaced the rolled turf to conceal the disturbances. Then he stood over the mound and declaimed a long and terrible curse on anyone who defiled this sacred burial place. He gave each of the four slaves a hard stare from which they flinched, and set off striding towards the camp.
Rain flattened his long, braided hair to his skull and blackened the shoulders of his grey scholar’s robe, but he was warm and comfortable in his soul. The plague was ending, the Romans seemed to have given up on their plans to reconquer the island, and the Saxons were in retreat. Neither Guinevia nor Arthur was dead, for Myrddin intuitively knew that Arthur had intended suicide once he had killed his lover.
Things had gone very well, he thought. Arthur believed that the gods again favoured Britain, and if it had taken some sleight of magic with mirrors and artificial thunder, well, much of sorcery was about that. The rain squall was a nice bonus, he mused. Maybe the gods actually did send that…
Arthur was jolting along on his horse, badly disoriented by both the drugged drink and the powerful emotions created by Myrddin’s stagecraft. Guinevia, pale as a wraith, rode clinging to her saddle pommel. She was equally dizzy and disoriented. Once determined on death, she was now light-headedly and delightedly alive but the world seemed a curious, dreamlike place.
She turned to Arthur. “Caros, I am glad to be alive still,” she said. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy on her mouth and it seemed as if another person was speaking the words in her place.
Arthur looked at her, his dazed mind still struggling with the concept that the gods had visited them. “Mithras is with us again,” he said wonderingly. “Britain is saved. I did not have to kill us.” He reached into the neck of his tunic and fingered the bull talisman hidden there. “Mithras is with us,” he repeated. “We have succeeded.”
Somewhere, the Fates that spin our destinies were howling with la
ughter.
This ‘Lord of the Narrow Sea’ series was inspired by the real third century emperor Carausius, who seized power in northern Gaul and declared himself ruler of that territory and of Britain. See more about his reign (286 – 293 AD) in the Carausian Notes which follow.
The first book of the series, ‘Arthur Britannicus’ attempts to follow the historical Carausius’ imperial career; subsequent books cannot do so, given that he was assassinated (or betrayed in battle) in 293 AD and they are set in later years.
‘Arthur Imperator,’ ‘Arthur Invictus,’ and ‘The King’s Cavalry’ precede this fifth book, ‘King Arthur’s Plague,’ which is set against the backdrop of one of the great bubonic epidemics which killed as many as a quarter of the population of Europe. The emperor Gothicus himself died of the plague in 270 AD, only a few decades before this fictional outbreak.
In this latest of Arthur’s adventures, there are other references to real events and places. For example, the Trapain Treasure was a hoard of silver plate recovered in 1919 within the boundary of the ancient hillfort now known as Trapain Law (formerly Dunpendyrlaw). This fort, near Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland was a place of burial in 1500 BC and was occupied almost continuously from 40 AD until about 400 AD, when a magnificent new rampart was built.
Bishop Candless’ fictional treasure is based upon the Roman table silver, early Christian objects and a Roman officer’s uniform found there in 1919. The finds had been hacked to pieces or crushed, ready either for melting as bullion, or for division as loot.
The hoard, mostly repaired and restored, can be seen at the National Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh, and is regarded as one of the finest finds to date of Roman treasure.
Another example of my incorporation of actual events in the narratives comes in the description of ‘magical’ auditory illusions created by Myrddin at Stonehenge. Modern researchers have found that the positioning of the standing stones cause flutes playing the same continuous note to set up patterns of interference, or standing sound waves which create the effect that invisible objects stand between a listener and the musical instruments.
To the ancients, such effects would have been considered magical, and it is no stretch of credulity to consider that the stones may have been placed with these properties in mind.
Equally, Myrddin might well have investigated the possibilities raised by Archimedes in 212 BC, to create thermal weapons by focusing the sun’s rays. ‘Burning mirrors’ of polished bronze could have been used to reflect the sun’s rays and blind Arthur, as he was dazzled during his sorcerer’s performance at Stonehenge.
King Kinadius, too, is a character from life, and was the first ruler of all Pictland. His reign from 843 -858 AD, was somewhat later than this Arthur’s, but this IS a work of fiction… Interestingly, Kinadius mac Ailpin was born on Iona, which was a centre of learning for Druids long before it became a Christian seat and could well have been the hiding place for Caratacus’ torc. As for the sacred sword that bound two religions, there is evidence that some Druids converted and became monks of an early Celtic C
hristian order called Culdees.