Legacy (26 page)

"Back to
where
?" Sarnac cut in, his voice rising to a yelp.

"Why, Camalat. It's the name of the residence Artorius has built, or reconstructed, at Cadbury. That's where I've been, as part of Queen Gwenhwyvaer's household."

"Queen . . . ! Alright, that's it!" Sarnac rounded furiously on Tylar. "Why the hell didn't you tell us?"

"Tell us
what
, Bob?" Tiraena was growing even more exasperated. "What's this all about?"

"Tell her, Tylar! Tell her just what we've stepped into, and just who we're talking about—this Artorius Riothamus, whose career we seem to have become part of."

Tylar sighed, seeming to resign the game. "King Arthur," he said simply. "The real one."

Even though Sarnac had known it beyond any real possibility of doubt, actually hearing it took the wind out of him. As if from a distance, he heard Tiraena's bewildered voice.

"But . . . but I remember hearing stories about him and his knights when I was little. Those stories were fantasies! They took place in a kind of never-never land, with dragons and giants and . . ."

"Yes," Tylar smiled. "The legends that will grow up around Artorius during the Middle Ages will naturally take on an even more vague and unhistorical quality among your Terran ancestors. For them, Earth itself will have become a 'kind of never-never land,' without even a clearly defined geography. Of course it never occurred to you to look for traces of such fairy tales amid the mundane realities among which you've been living."

Sarnac shook himself into mental gear. "Yeah . . . now I see why you've kept Tiraena and me separate. I got the legends in a form that at least had some connection with Britain in this general period—but I don't know squat about history. She has the historical knowledge, via brain implant. Together, we could have figured it out in a minute! But, damn it, I should have seen some of the clues on my own—starting with the name 'Artorius,' especially the way the backwoods Britons pronounce it." He slowed down. "But . . . I guess I haven't heard it all that much. I haven't exactly been moving in social circles that are on a first-name basis with him. And the Gauls all call him 'Riothamus.' "

"Precisely." Tylar nodded. "That's why his identity will eventually be lost sight of. In all the scraps of authentic history from this side of the Channel in which he's mentioned, he's referred to by the honorific. Meanwhile, in Britain, he will pass into legend under his given name."

"But Tylar," Tiraena protested, frowning with concentration. "I'm reviewing the history through my implant, and this doesn't seem
right
. Isn't the man at the root of the Arthurian legend supposed to come later than this? Isn't he supposed to lead the Britons at the Battle of Badon, around 500? And isn't he supposed to die in another battle, at Camlann, even later?"

"Yeah," Sarnac pounced. "Killed by Mordred, the bad guy of the story! Where is
he
? And," he hurried on as the old tales began to come back to him in a flood, "where are lots of other people, like Lancelot? And what about the Round Table? And—"

Tylar raised a hand. "If I may answer your questions in order," he said, turning first to Tiraena, "I must confess that the historical data you were given were slightly edited. No, not so much edited as extremely old-fashioned. The surviving references to the two battles you've mentioned will long be regarded as the bedrock proof of Arthur's historical existence. But it's a fallacy. You see, this society is about to sink into a period of profound illiteracy—Sidonius belongs to the last generation of classically educated people in Western Europe. Those who come after will mangle the surviving records, and they'll have no recollection of the Roman custom of naming elite military units after their commanders. They'll read references to the Artoriani—some of whom will get back to Britain and function on a freelance basis for a few more generations, gradually descending into brigandage—and think Artorius himself is being referred to. The Artoriani will form the backbone of the British collection of war bands that temporarily stops the Saxons at Badon, a generation from now when there's no longer a High Kingship, nor any economic basis for it. And at Camlann the unit will finally tear itself apart in internal strife—stirred up, our researches suggest, by someone named Medraut.

"And as for the other elements that seem to be missing," he continued, turning to Sarnac, "they are mostly embellishments, added on by troubadours during the later Middle Ages. Lancelot, for instance; they'll be performing for an aristocratic audience of Norman French-speakers, so . . ."

". . . So they'll have to bring in a Frog hero," Sarnac finished for him, nodding slowly.

"Yes, and work him into the already well-established tradition of Guinevere's infidelity. In earlier versions of the story, Mordred is her lover."

"So," Tiraena put in expressionlessly, "some of the mud will stick."

"Indeed. Medieval moralism will require that her 'wantonness' be the cause of Camelot's downfall. Actually," Tylar went on, warming to his theme, "a number of these apparently missing elements have some kind of basis in what you have seen. Merlin, for example: a sixth-century bard named Myrddin will go bonkers and start spouting prophecies, and, like so many others from various centuries, will end up in King Arthur's legendary court. But the form he takes in the legend will also owe something to Ambrosius Aurelianus, whose Roman learning will make him seem almost wizardly to the coming generations. In fact, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's retelling of an early form of the legend, 'Ambrosius' is an alternate name for Merlin."

"Yeah," Sarnac said bitterly. "Clues strewn all over the landscape, and it took the folk tale Hamyc was telling tonight to make it all click for me. It sounded so much like . . ." He blinked. "Wait a minute! Do these old Sarmatian yarns also enter into the legend?"

"Quite possibly," Tylar allowed. "Yes, I
knew
this would happen eventually. I couldn't keep you from hearing Hamyc's stories, so there was no preventing it."

"But why did you
want
to prevent it?" Tiraena's voice was almost plaintive in its incomprehension.

"Yeah," Sarnac challenged. "To get back to my original question, why didn't you tell us in the beginning?"

Tylar regarded them levelly. "Because it would have meant the end of your usefulness as unbiased observers. It would have filled you both—especially you, Robert—with too many preconceptions and expectations from your cultural heritage."

"Ah," Tiraena breathed. "So
that's
what you meant about our 'fresh insights.' "

"Just so. We needed observers who weren't burdened with the knowledge of what Artorius will come to mean to posterity, who would be able to see these people as people, not as symbols and archetypes. And who would be able to view with detachment what is going to happen."

Sarnac felt a chill, although the small room was really very warm. "You mean . . ."

"Yes. You know how this story ends. The legend is quite clear on that, and history leaves no question about how it
has
to end—how it must be
allowed
to end." He paused, then resumed with a sad little smile.

"Remember what I said a moment ago, about the echoes of history that can be heard, however faintly, in the legends that will attach themselves to Artorius? Well, one such echo is that King Arthur dies a victim of treason. But the traitor isn't Mordred, who, as I pointed out, belongs to a later generation. No, the real traitor is named Arvandus. . . ."

It was a mild winter day even for these southern lands, and it was quite comfortable at the open window that overlooked the roofs and walls of Toulouse, the flowing Garonne, and the countryside beyond.

King Euric took a deep breath and wondered, not for the first time, what his remote Gothic ancestors in their frigid Baltic
urheim
would have thought of this smiling, snowless land, where the western branch of the
volk
had found its home. But they couldn't have imagined it, any more than they could have foreseen the epic wanderings that would bring their descendants southeastward from the forests, into the steppes that they would seize from the Sarmatians, then into the lands of Rome, recoiling from the Hunnish hordes that galloped out of the rising sun, then onward through those Roman lands, as they first fought back against the Empire's arrogant oppression, and then became that same Empire's saviors from the Huns, when those horrid semi-human creatures had finally arrived in Gaul.

Yes, it had been like something out of saga . . . but no, it dwarfed anything in those naive old hero-tales from the days before his people had attained Christianity—in its true, Arian form, fortunately for the good of their souls! And it was by no means over. Under his reign the Visigoths would reach pinnacles of glory of which he did not dare to speak aloud—even to his closest associates. Someday the bards would place the name of Euric above those of the old heroes—perhaps even above that of Odin.

He scowled inwardly and chided himself for thoughts that wandered into the borderlands of paganism.
I am but the servant of God
, he reminded himself as he so often did,
and everything I do is in furtherance of His plan.
Of course, God sometimes worked in ways not readily understood by petty, short-sighted mortals—like three years ago, when Euric had ascended the throne by murdering his brother Theodoric.
Theodoric was an ineffectual weakling,
he thought dismissively,
and it was not God's will that he rule over the
volk
at this crucial time in our history. Besides, only hypocrites raised their eyebrows; hadn't Theodoric himself murdered our oldest brother Thorismund fifteen years earlier?

No, Theodoric had to go—in this, as in all things, I was but the instrument of God's will. He had no vision. Not even a glimpse of God's plan for His Arian Visigothic people. Theodoric was content to remain a Roman
foederate.
The highest ambition he could conceive was to make himself Master of Soldiers at Rome—as Stilicho was in his day, and Ricimer is now.
Euric seethed with the anger he always experienced when he thought of Ricimer.
But
, he reminded himself,
what could one expect of a renegade mongrel like that? Half Visigothic and half Suevic, and a damned Catholic to boot!

No, Gaiseric the Vandal was right. There was no future in ruling this decomposing corpse of an empire as generalissimo for some puppet emperor or other.
But Gaiseric's just a brigand, content with his little North African pirate kingdom. It was to me that God granted the revelation that it isn't enough to break free of Rome. No, we must
replace
Rome with something nobler: an Arian Empire, ruled by the Visigoths, as God clearly intends.

He had made a good start, he told himself. Over the last two years he had brought practically all of Spain under his rule, crushing the Romans and penning the Suevi into the northwest corner. Next would come the incorporation of the rest of Gaul. Gaiseric could be bullied into an alliance, and would be allowed part of the spoils—for now. Then would come Italy. Then . . .

Euric shook himself. Dwelling too long on his grand design was like drinking too much of this land's wine. It was too intoxicating, it rendered one incapable of attending to practicalities—like listening to this Italian merchant that Namatius had just brought in. He turned from the window and faced the fellow, who waited in respectful silence for a response.

"So," he said, "you say Arvandus has been found guilty?"

"Indeed, sire. And sentenced to death. At the time I left Rome, his relatives and friends were trying to get the sentence commuted to exile."

"They'll probably succeed," Euric mused. "It would be typical. A nation that knows in its bones that it's no longer worthy of loyalty can't feel any real indignation about treason." He considered the document that the merchant had prepared. It lay on the table where Namatius had set it after reading it aloud.

It was absolutely incredible. After having intercepted the letter this Arvandus creature had written to him, the Romans had proceeded with a
public
trial, shouting that letter's contents out upon the winds of Rome, to be heard by anyone—including this itinerant trader who had for years supplemented his income by selling Namatius the latest Italian news.

"Namatius, does this information ring true?"

"It does, sire," his spymaster replied. "We learned of Anthemius' British alliance last year. It was clearly directed at us, even though the initial campaign was against the Saxons of the lower Loire. As for the Britons' subsequent deployment and future plans . . . yes, it is consistent with our other sources."

Euric nodded. "All right. You have done well," he told the merchant. "Namatius, pay him a suitable bonus." The informant blubbered his gratitude as Namatius ushered him out and turned him over to a clerk before returning to the room and facing his master.

Euric gazed for a moment at the Gallo-Roman. Clever fellow, like so many of them. Catholic, of course . . . But that didn't matter. Euric had always made use of the best talents among his subjects, without regard to their religion. This surprised some people.

Fools,
he thought scornfully.
Like those Visigoths who think we should go beyond merely breaking the authority of the higher Catholic clergy, and forcibly convert the Gauls to Arianism.
That would have defeated Euric's master plan for the future Empire, ruled by a Visigothic elite which was preserved by religious barriers from assimilation into the native multitudes of Gaul and Spain and eventually Italy, and all the rest. He knew full well that, since settling here in southwest Gaul, the men of the
volk
had lost no time in acquiring a taste for the dark, fine-boned local women.
Let the lads have their fun,
he thought indulgently.
It does no harm, and everyone knows that all women really want to be raped. But as long as a religious difference makes actual marriage out of the question, the purity of the
volk
will remain inviolate and the clever Romans will perform their cleverness under the direction of a ruling class whose Visigothic soul-strength is illuminated by the true Arian faith. This is God's design, which I am commanded to implement by any means necessary. It is all so clear!