The Hallowed Isle Book One Read online

  It was the Bishop’s idea that a day of martial displays would relax the chieftains as well as enabling them to judge the temper of each other’s men. And it was just as well, she thought, that they should have some time to get over last night’s embarassment at having tried to draw the Chalybe Sword from the stone—and failed.

  Once more she bit back her anger. Curse you, Merlin, for preparing this test and then disappearing! If you know who is destined to draw the blade, why are you not here to make sure he does so?

  Originally the amphitheater must have seated nearly the entire population of the town. She guessed it was not now much used, for some of the timbers had decayed, but the stands that remained gave a good view of the arena, whose grass had been cropped by the sheep that ordinarily grazed here into a mat of green.

  The boy leaned forward as two new combatants strode onto the green, armed as for war, except for the leather bands that wrapped their swords.

  “Who are they?”

  “One of Cataur’s men and a man from Demetia, by the badges,” she said. “I don’t know their names. Do you want to be a fighter?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Peace is better than war, but nobody will have peace unless some are willing to spend their lives to guard the others. At least it is so in these times.”

  “Is that what Caius Turpilius told you?”

  “It is what I believe.”

  His gaze returned to the field. The two men saluted the stands, then faced each other, feet braced and weapons raised.

  “But don’t you dream of winning honor, or hearing people praise your name?”

  He colored, and she knew that she had guessed well.

  “If I fought for the right things . . .” he said in a low voice, with a quick glance to see if she was laughing at him.

  One of the swords slammed against the opposing shield and he looked back to the field to see the exchange of blows. The fighting settled into a pattern of tense pauses and flurried engagement. It was a shock when the Dumnonian’s blade slipped past the enemy guard and stopped just touching the Demetian swordsman where the neck and shoulder joined. Igierne admired his control—if the blow had landed with full force it could have broken the man’s neck even with a blunted edge. The Cornovians began to cheer and there was a patter of applause from the stands.

  “I had a strange dream last night,” the boy said as the next pair came out onto the green. “I was standing in a forge, watching a blacksmith at work, except that it was not a man, but a woman, like one of the old goddesses, with hair of flame. She took the fragments she was hammering from the anvil and cast them into a crucible. But they weren’t metal, but the limbs of men. And then she turned and spoke to me—”

  He fell silent, frowning. Igierne felt her skin pebble. Who was this boy to have a dream of such power?

  “Can you remember her words?”

  “All that is made will in the end be broken. I gather the shards and try them in the flame. The dross I skim away, but the true metal runs together, all the stronger for its mixing.”

  “What happened then?” Igierne asked softly.

  “The lumps melted and mingled until they were a single glowing mass. The goddess poured the molten metal into a mold, and when it was solid, she laid it on the anvil and began to hammer it. She hammered it into a sword . . . and when she was done,” he swallowed, “she asked if I would serve her, and held it out to me. . . .”

  Igierne’s heart began to bound unevenly in her breast. “Boy, look at me—” She searched his face, striving to find something familiar in the curly brown hair or the blue eyes. But her own eyes blurred so that it was hard to see. “What is your name?”

  “Arktos, because once I met a bear—well, really, it’s Artor—”

  Or Artorius? If this was her son, clearly he had not been told. She must speak with Flavia!

  The boy was still staring at her in amazement when she saw a beefy young man with the Turpilius nose running toward them across the grass.

  “Artor, Artor!” He pulled up in front of them, sketched a bow to Igierne, and grasped the rail in front of the boy. “I broke my sword practicing at the post! Run back to the camp and get my good blade—quickly!” He danced from one foot to the other. “I’m due to fight in the next round!”

  Igierne looked from Cai to Artor, who was already on his feet, apparently accustomed to being ordered around in this way. “My Lady, do you mind? I will not be long—”

  She gestured to him to draw nearer, and said softly, “You will return all the quicker if you stop in the old chapel just beyond the eastern gate and take the sword that is there—”

  His face brightened, and he vaulted over the railing and darted away.

  Well, Merlin, if that is interference then it is your fault for not being here to stop me, she thought defiantly. If our blood runs true in him, he will draw the Sword!

  “It was kind of Artor to help you,” she said to Cai, who was still standing there.

  “Oh, well, he has some funny ideas, but he’s a good lad all the same.”

  Not a bad recommendation from an older brother, she told herself, trying to gauge how long it should take the boy to get to the gate and find the chapel. Was he there already? Could he draw the blade, and if he succeeded, she wondered in sudden fear, what would happen then?

  It seemed an eternity before she saw his tall figure across the grass, but Cai seemed surprised at how quickly he had made the journey. Artor was walking, not running, and a bundle, swathed in his cloak, was clasped in his arms. He seemed dazed, as one who has looked on too much light.

  Igierne felt her heart begin that heavy beat once more.

  “What’s wrong? Did you run too fast?” Cai was hurrying toward him. “Here, I’ll take it—”

  For a moment Artor resisted, then he released the bundle, and Cai fumbled for the hilt.

  “Ow! It burned!”

  The blade slid from his hands and Artor bent to catch it before it could hit the ground. Igierne let out a breath she had not known she held, sudden tears blurring her eyes.

  “That’s not my sword!” Cai took his smarting fingers out of his mouth to cry. Artor looked at Igierne in appeal.

  She got to her feet, pitching her voice to carry, though her vision came and went in waves, as if she looked through fire.

  “It is not, nor ever shall be. It is the Sword of Kings that Artor holds, the Chalybe blade that the Defender of Britannia shall bear. By blood he is its rightful heir. Before his birth this destiny was written in the stars!”

  Her knees gave way and she sat down again, but she had said enough. From every side, men were gathering. Caius Turpilius came hurrying forward. His face blanched as he saw Artor holding the Sword.

  “Arktos, lad, where did you get that blade?”

  “I found it in the chapel beside the gate. Father, did I do wrong? She said—” He broke off, for Caius, seeing the triumph in Igierne’s eyes, had gone down on one knee before him.

  “Boy, the druid told me that your birth was good, but I see now that you come of higher blood than ever I dreamed of!”

  “Father, get up! I don’t understand!”

  “What he means is that you are my son, Artor, by Uthir the High King,” Igierne said in a shaking voice, “the son that we entrusted to Merlin when you were a babe, that he might find you a safe fosterage.”

  “The druid came to us in the summer of the year Uthir made the lady Igierne his bride,” Caius echoed, “with a boy-child a few weeks old.”

  The murmur of commentary from the men who had gathered around them became a clamor as word spread. Now the great lords were coming, Cataur and Leudonus and Eleutherius, with their champions behind them.

  “What is this tale?” challenged Leudonus, fixing Igierne with his pale gaze.

  “This boy is Uthir’s son, and he has drawn the Sword!”

  Leudonus wheeled round to glare at Artor, who still stood with the Sword clasped against his breast.

  �
�Do you say so? We’ll go back to the chapel and if he proves it, then, woman, you can explain!”

  The word spread fast. By the time the procession reached the hermit’s chapel, most of the chieftains and their men and half the town beside had joined it. Someone had even sent for Bishop Dubricius, who arrived, red-faced and puffing, just as they reached the door. With his usual imperturbable good sense he began to create order out of the confusion, calling on the chieftains to calm their men, and selecting, with an unerring grasp of the politics of the gathering, the witnesses, for it was clear that the chapel would hold barely a dozen men.

  In the end, besides the Bishop himself, the group included Leudonus and Cataur, the chief magistrate of Calleva, Eleutherius, Catraut and Eldaul, Ulfinus, who had been Uthir’s friend, Igierne, Turpilius, and his son Cai.

  And Artor, who looked about him like a beast that scents the hunters closing in. But he was still hanging onto the Sword.

  “Don’t be afraid, lad,” said the Bishop. “The truth will prevail, here on this holy ground.”

  Artor nodded, and Igierne knew it was not the men he feared, but his destiny.

  “Will you swear before God and His holy angels that you drew the Sword you are holding from out this stone?”

  All could see that the slot in which it had been fixed was empty. Artor nodded again.

  “Then I will ask you to thrust the blade back into the rock, and draw it out once more.”

  Something grim in the set of the boy’s jaw reminded Igierne painfully of Uthir as he moved forward. She heard Ulfinus’s breath catch, and knew he saw it too. Artor dropped the swathing cloth, and with a swift turn of the wrist, brought the blade up, positioned it over the slot, and with the twisting movement that Igierne’s own muscles remembered, thrust it home.

  “There is blood on the stone—” said someone, pointing at the dark stain that had run down into the “r” of the rex in the rock surface.

  “I cut my hand,” said Artor, “when I pulled it out before.”

  “I have heard that such blades must be blooded when they are drawn,” said Eldaul reflectively.

  For a moment Artor studied the sheathed Sword, his brows bent in a frown, then he turned to the men. “There it is, as it was before. Try if you will. . . .”

  “It has burnt me once already!” exclaimed Cai. “I have no desire to touch it again.”

  “Well I will try,” said Catraut, grinning, “though I have no wish to be High King.” He went forward, and though the sword did not burn him, neither could he budge it from the stone.

  Cataur tried then, and some of the others, to no avail. And all the while Leudonus watched them, pulling at his beard, his gaze going from the Sword to Igierne and back again.

  “I think my wife has told me something about this blade. There is a trick to its sheathing, is there not? Are you so tormented by your grief, my lady, that you have told this poor boy the secret and convinced yourself he is your son?”

  “Indeed I know that Sword,” Igierne said proudly, “for my family guarded it for many years. But I did not bring it here. And as for the boy—my heart began to whisper to me who he must be, and so I told him where to find the blade. But no more—before Our Lady’s throne I swear it. I told him no more! It is not the drawing of the blade, but the wielding that is the test, Leudonus. Let Artor pull it out again for you and see if you can bear its power!”

  “Do as she says, my son,” Bishop Dubricius said softly. “As you did before . . .”

  “I knelt down before the altar and asked God’s leave,” said Artor, “for I was not quite sure it was right to take something from a shrine.” As he spoke, he knelt once more, head bowed in prayer. Then he signed himself and went to the stone. “But I did it all faster, because I was hurrying . . .”

  He was not hurrying now. Igierne saw him swallow as he faced the Sword, this time knowing what pulling it out might mean.

  He set his hand on the hilt, and she saw him stiffen at the first uprush of power. Then he set his feet more firmly and pulled, the muscles in his forearm rippling as he turned the blade, and with a faint hiss it came free. Artor took a step backward and swung it high, and no man could say after whether it was the last light of sunset coming through the open door that lit the Sword or some radiance from within.

  Seen by that light, Artor’s face was transfigured as well, the boy’s unformed features overlaid with the stern majesty of a king. He brought the blade down and drew the keen edge across his forearm next to the other gash. Once more, blood dripped upon the stone.

  “It is speaking to me . . .” he murmured. “It only whispered before—” He turned the flat of the blade against his wounds, and when he lifted it, there were two white scars. He straightened then, resting the weapon across his two palms.

  “My son,” said Igierne, “what does it say?”

  “It tells me that the power to defend is the same as the power to destroy. One must balance the other. It says . . . it is a Sword of Justice, that will endure no lie.” His blue gaze lifted to Leudonus’s face, and the older man could not look away. “Stretch out your hand, my lord, and prove the truth or falsehood of your suspicions on this blade.”

  Leudonus did not lack courage, but as he neared Artor his steps slowed, as if he walked against a wind. Still, he managed to grip the golden hilt for a full minute before his features contorted in pain and he wrenched his hand away.

  “Do not try to take the Sword again. From this hour to his life’s ending it will bear no touch but that of the Defender,” said a new voice.

  They all turned. Merlin stood in the doorway, leaning on his staff. His hair and beard had grown longer, and he was clad only in a kilt of hide, but the Wild Man no longer looked out of his eyes.

  “I took him from his mother’s breast and gave him to Turpilius to foster. He is Igierne’s son.”

  “But is he Uthir’s?” asked Leudonus, recovering. “It was Gorlosius who visited her at Dun Tagell, as I have heard.”

  “It was Uthir, in Gorlosius’s guise,” said Merlin. “And Gorlosius himself lay dead already when the king came to her.”

  “Then it was not adultery,” someone whispered. “Look at his face—who else could he be but Uthir’s true son?”

  “He is very young—” Eldaul began.

  “Then you will advise him,” snapped Igierne. “Does it matter whether he is my son or he dropped out of the sky? For many generations my family guarded this Sword. Now it has chosen its King.”

  She turned to Artor. “Will you accept the trust the Sword has laid upon you? Will you swear to defend, not one region, or one tribe, or one faith, but all this Hallowed Isle?”

  Artor knelt before her, the Sword fixed upright before him. In his face shone exaltation, and terror, and joy.

  “By this holy blade I do so swear . . .”

  PEOPLE AND PLACES

  A note on pronunciation:

  British names are given in fifth-century spelling, which does not yet reflect pronunciation changes. Initial letters should be pronounced as they are in English. Medial letters are as follows.

  SPELLED PRONOUNCED

  p ....................b

  t .....................d

  k/c .................(soft)g

  b ....................v (approximately)

  d ....................soft “th” (modern Welsh “dd”)

  g ....................“yuh”

  m ...................v

  initial ue ........w

  PEOPLE IN THE STORY

  CAPITALS = major character

  * = historical personnage

  ( ) = dead before story begins

  [ ] = name as given in later literature

  *Aelle—chief of the South Saxons

  *Agricola Longhand—prince of Demetia

  AMBROS/MERLIN, son of Maderun and a Wild Man, druid and wizard

  (*Ambrosius the Elder)

  *AMBROSIUS AURELIANUS

  AMLODIUS, Protector of Brigantia,
husband of Artoria Argantel

  *Antonius Donatus, lord of the Novantae

  Artoria Argantel, Lady of the Lake, high priestess of the Old Faith at the Isle of Maidens

  ARTORIUS/ARTOR [Arthur], son of Uthir and Igierne

  (Artorius Hamicus Sarmaticus, priest of the Sword and Argantel’s grandfather)

  Baldulf—a Saxon ally of Octha

  Belutacadros, ancient British war god

  Blaise, priest, confessor to Maderun

  (Brannos [Bran the Blessed], a legendary king)

  *Cataur [Cador] of Dumnonia, son of Docomaglos

  CAI, [Kay], son of Caius Turpilius, Artor’s foster-brother & companion

  Caius Turpilius, Artor’s foster father

  Carmelidus, king of Moridunon, maternal grandfather of Merlin

  *Categirnus, older son of Vitalinus

  *Catelius Decianus, lord of the northern Votadini

  Cathubodva, ancient British war goddess, analagous to the Morrigan

  *Catraut, prince of Verulamium

  Cerituend, Viaun, Creirbiu and Imacdub, Ceridwen, Gwion, Creidwy and Afagddu, from the old legend of Ceridwen’s cauldron

  Cocidius, an ancient British war god

  “Coelius [Coel Hen], lord of Eburacum

  *Colgrin—a Saxon ally of Octha

  *Constantine, son of Cataur

  *Coroticus, lord of Strathclyde

  *Dumnuall [Dyfnwal], daughter’s son of Germanianus and Ridarchus’ brother, lord of the Southern Votadini

  Docmaglos, prince of Dumnonia, second son of Gerontius the elder

  *DUBRICIUS, bishop of Isca and primate of Britannia

  *Ebissa—nephew of Hengest

  Ebrdila, a priestess on the Isle of Maidens

  Eldaul, lord of Glevum

  Eleutherius, lord of Eburacum

  Felix, a Christian priest in the service of Vitalinus

  Flavia—wife of Caius Turpilius, Artor’s foster-mother