The Hallowed Isle Book Four Read online

  For a moment the king stood and swore. Then he fumbled for the strap that held his horn. He set it to his lips and blew, the sound dull in the heavy air. From somewhere above him came an answer. Artor loosened the rein and the horse started forward.

  Three more times after that he blew the horn, and each time the reply came more faintly, until he could hear nothing at all. It was full dark now, and if he wandered further, he risked damaging the horse’s legs in some unseen hole. The ground was rising. He stubbed his toe on a large stone and stepped aside, finding more even ground beyond it. His mount stopped short, trembling, and Artor yanked on the rein. Even in the thick air he noticed the shift in pressure that told him the rock he had just passed had been no ordinary boulder, but by now he scarcely cared. If the place made the horse nervous, perhaps wild creatures would avoid it. In any case, he could go no further now.

  He hobbled the horse by feel and removed the bridle, un-girthed the saddle pad and laid it on the ground next to an upended slab of stone. Another slab lay half over it, and he pulled the pad beneath it, grateful for whatever protection it might afford. Then, wrapping the Pictish plaid around him, he lay down.

  It was warmer than he had expected in the shelter of the stones. He felt pieces of something like broken pottery beneath the blanket and swept them aside. Fragments of warning tugged at his memory, but exhaustion was already overwhelming him. He was asleep before he could decide whether he ought to be afraid.

  * * *

  “Artor . . . Defender of Britannia . . . arise. . . .”

  Blinking, the king sat up. He was glad to wake from the old nightmare about Mons Badonicus, but as he stared around him he wondered if he had passed into another dream. It was still night, but there was no mist within the circle, and the stones glowed. In their eerie light he saw that his shelter consisted of a slab of rock balanced on two others like a small table, but instead of the bare earth he expected beneath it, he saw a lighted tunnel that led down into the hill.

  “Artor, come to Me. . . .”

  The king glanced swiftly around him. His horse stood hip-slung, head low in sleep. The call was coming from the depths. A whisper from his waking mind warned him not to answer, but the voice was sweet as his mother’s croon, golden as Guendivar’s laughter. No mortal could have resisted that call.

  He knelt, peering into the opening. And it seemed to him that the space grew larger, or perhaps it was he who was becoming small, for what he saw now was a tunnel through which he could walk easily.

  The light flared before him. When he could see once more, he found himself in a round chamber carved out of the rock. He could not see the passage through which he had entered, and there were people all around him. With a start of of pure terror, he understood that the Hidden People had him in their power.

  Artor took a deep breath and looked around him. They did not seem hostile. Men and women stared back at him. They had the look of some of the men he had seen among the Picts, sturdy of body with grey eyes and thick-springing earth-brown hair, but they were not dressed like anyone he had ever seen. Warriors went bare-chested, their loins wrapped in woolen kilts held by belts ornamented with plaques of gold. Their skin was blue with tattooed designs, and at their sides hung leaf-shaped bronze swords. Other men wore the skins of beasts, clasped on one shoulder. There were women in gathered skirts and shawls, their hair coiled in netted caps, while others wore a single garment held at the shoulders with brooches of bronze or gold.

  They had wealth enough, whoever they were—gold at wrist and ear, and crescent necklets of beaten gold. As he wondered, the crowd parted and a man robed in white wool appeared. He had a look of Merlin, but he was smaller, his breast and shoulders sheathed in gold. An imperious gesture summoned Artor, and the people drew back, pointing at his mail shirt and his sword.

  At the back of the cave a woman sat throned on an outcropping of stone. There were carvings on it; he realized that the entire cavern was carved in spirals so that its contours blurred. But he had no attention to spare for them now. Those same spirals twined across the ivory flesh of the woman’s bare torso—no, not merely a woman, he thought as he noted the diadem of gold that gleamed from the cloud of dark hair—a queen. She was very like Drest Gurthinmoch’s woman whom the Picts called the Great Mare. A skirt of painted linen fell in stiff folds beneath her belly; for mantle she had the thick furs of forest cats, the wicked heads drawn over her shoulders. Cairngorms glinted from their slanted eyes.

  “Defender. . . .”

  Unbidden, Artor fell to his knees. Her eyes, too, were like those of the Pictish queen.

  “What do you want of me?” His voice was harsh in his own ears.

  “Defend this land—”

  “I have done so since I was fifteen winters old.”

  “Defend your people,” the queen said then. “All of them— the children of the earth-folk as well as the children of the sun.”

  Artor set his hand on the pommel of his sword. “I am pledged to deal justly with all those who dwell in this hallowed isle.”

  “Men need not justice only, but hope, and a dream.” Her voice was harsh honey.

  Artor shook his head. “How can I give them that, Lady? I am only a man. . . .”

  “You are the child of the Bear, you are the Raven of Britannia,” she continued implacably. “Are you willing to become her eternal king?”

  Artor remembered the oaths he had sworn at his anointing. But this was something different, a bright shadow on the soul. As he hesitated, she spoke again.

  “There is a price to be paid.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Touch the Stone, and you will understand.”

  For a long moment he stared at her. “Where shall I find it?” he whispered at last.

  Her eyes held his, and his head began to swim. “It is here . . .” The stone on which she was sitting began to glow. As Artor reached towards it her words were echoed from all around him: “Here . . . here . . . HERE!”

  The blaze became blinding and he fell into light.

  Artor awakened to a sharp and localized pain just above his breastbone. His eyes opened, and he became very still. Beneath his nose he glimpsed the dull gleam of a flint spearhead. His gaze followed the shaft to the man who held it. For a moment he thought he was still dreaming, for the spearman was stocky, with a brown bush of hair like the warriors he had seen in the cavern. Then he realized that this man was weathered, his hide cape tattered with wear. He was not alone.

  “Who are you?” one of the other men asked in guttural Brythonic. He was a little better dressed than the others, but Artor recognized his captors as the people of the hills against whom the Pict-lords had warned him. But he knew them now for the first inhabitants of this land. One of the strangers held Raven by the bridle. The black horse stamped and shook his head, but did not try to get away.

  Moving very slowly, the king edged away from under the spear and sat up, brushing more potsherds away as he set down his hand. Someone gasped and made a sign of warding.

  “I am the Defender of Britannia . . .” he answered, his mind still filled with echoes of his dream.

  “You are here all night?”

  Artor nodded. The sky was still grey, but the mist no longer hugged the hills. A light wind gave hope that it might clear later in the day.

  “I was lost in the mist.” He looked around him, only now appreciating the strangeness of his refuge. “This place seemed . . . warm.”

  “You sleep with the Old Ones. . . .” The speaker showed broken teeth in a grim smile. “This is their tomb.”

  Artor looked around him at the kerb of stones and the megaliths in whose shelter he had lain, understanding now the nervousness with which they eyed him.

  “I am a living man.”

  The speaker reached out and gripped his shoulder. “He is solid,” he confirmed.

  “I feel hollow—” Artor added with a smile. “I have not eaten since yestermorn.”

  “We kill
strangers who come into our hunting runs—do the children of the Great Mare not tell you so?” the first man said bitterly.

  Artor drew up his knees and rested his arms upon them, knowing it would be fatal to show himself afraid. “If your ancestors did not take my soul, it is not for you to do so.”

  The speaker muttered to the others then turned back again. “I know you. You are the one they call the Bear, the lord of the sun-people beyond the Wall.”

  “I am he.” Artor nodded, wondering if admitting it was wise. But he found himself compelled to speak truth here.

  “Come—it is not well to stay in a place of the old ones, even by day. We give you food and lead you to your men. We watch them since sunset past, but they do not see us there.” The grim smile flickered again. “But there is a price.”

  “There is always a price—” said Artor, remembering his vision of the night. “Name it.”

  “Speak for us to the children of the Great Mare. They drive us from the best lands already. Let them leave us alone, not hunt us like deer.”

  Artor looked at them, noting bad teeth and thinning hair, legs bowed with malnutrition. Saxon and Roman, Briton and Pict alike were newcomers next to these, the original inhabitants of Britannia. Slowly he got to his feet and set his hand on the pommel of the Chalybe sword.

  “Will you take me as your king?”

  The speaker looked him up and down, then grinned. “By star and stone we swear it.”

  “Then by star and stone I will swear also to protect you.”

  IV

  THE ORCHARD

  A.D. 504

  ARTOR WALKED WITH HIS MOTHER BY THE LAKE, WHERE THE apple orchard came down to the shore. Igierne used a cane now, and paused often to catch her breath. It was clear that movement was painful, but she had refused to stop, nor did she complain. When they came to the long rock that had been shaped roughly into a seat she eased down with a sigh.

  He stood behind her, one hand resting lightly on her thin shoulder. Trees circled the lake and clung to the lower slopes of the hills, dark masses of evergreen mingled with bare branches just showing the first haze of spring green. On the apple trees, buds were swelling, their branches framing the shining silver water and the shaded masses of surrounding hills that held the lake like a cup in their strong hands.

  Here the bones of the earth showed strong and clear. In the mountains Artor found an enduring beauty for which the changing displays of leaf and flower were only an adornment—like his mother, he thought, whose fine bone structure retained its beauty despite the softly wrinkled skin.

  “It is beautiful,” Igierne said softly. “It is worth the labor of getting here for the refreshment of spirit it brings.”

  “I might say the same,” answered the king. He had spent much of the winter with Cunobelinus at Trimontium, and seen him sworn king over the Votadini on the stone at the base of its hill, and at the moment the chieftain’s foot touched the stone, Artor had heard the earth’s exultant cry.

  From there he had travelled down the eastern coast. He was glad now that he had decided to follow the old Roman Wall west again to the Isle of Maidens. Since the last time he had seen her, his mother had grown visibly more frail.

  “Look—” She pointed towards the eastern hills. “There is the path that leads up to the circle of stones.”

  “I stopped there on my way,” said Artor, remembering the ring of stones. Some had fallen, and the tallest were no more than breast high, as if the earth were slowly reclaiming a broken crown. “How many are there? I counted three times and the answer was never the same.”

  “Ah, that secret belongs to our Mysteries—”

  Artor shook his head, laughing. “Is that why those stones are so—alive? Most of the circles I have seen are somnolent as an old dog in the sun. But the ones on the hill hummed with energy.”

  “And how would you know that?” Igierne turned to look up at him.

  Artor kept his gaze on the hills. “Because I have met the folk who built them. Or their spirits. I wish I had thought to ask them why!”

  “Tell me—” Igierne’s voice changed, and Artor knew that she was speaking as Lady of the Lake. Easing down beside her, he began to describe the night he had spent beneath the ancient stones.

  “And now,” he ended, “it is as if I were growing new senses. I can tell, before I even touch it, if a stone has weathered naturally or was shaped by the Old Ones of this land. Who was the Lady I saw, and what did her question mean?”

  “I would guess . . . she was a great queen of the elder days, so bound to the land that after her death she would not pass onward to the Blessed Isles, but became one with the spirits of the earth. To some . . .” she spoke ever more slowly, “that choice is given. They become part of the Otherworld that lies like a veil above our own. In some places the fabric is folded, and there, the two worlds touch.”

  “That grave was one of them . . .” he said slowly. “As are all the places where the old ones worked the stones. . . .”

  “In their proper times and seasons, it is so.”

  Artor realized that he was gripping the rock on which he sat. Beneath his palm its chill surface was warming; he felt a vibration as if some great beast purred beneath his hand, and let go quickly.

  “What is the price? And where is the Stone? The Votadini king stone belongs to that land and that people only. Where is the Stone that will hail me as king and emperor?”

  Igierne shook her head. “That is your mystery.” She looked at him again. “Why do you want to be emperor? Is it the old dream of glory that draws you—the need to avenge Maximian?”

  “Perhaps it was . . . at first,” he replied. “I admit that Riothamus’ offer was flattering. But I have been thinking about it as I travelled around this land. The Lady commanded me to defend all the races who dwell in Britannia, from the earth-folk to the Saxons. At its best, the justice of Rome did that, but the Pax Romana has failed.”

  “Will you impose a Pax Britannica upon the world?”

  “Perhaps, to keep this Island safe, that is what I will have to do. . . .”

  Igierne sighed. “You have seen the tumbled stones of the second wall that the Romans built to defend the first one that Hadrianus made. Each conquest only gave them a new land that had to be protected. But in the end they could not hold all they had taken. To be accepted by all of Britannia is more than any other prince of our people has achieved—do you truly believe that you can be a king for Gallia as well?”

  “Mother, I do not know. But to bring peace to the world and justice to its peoples, we need a dream. I think I have to try. . . .”

  Morgause was in the weaving shed, supervising the younger priestesses as they checked the bags of raw fleece, when she realized that someone was standing in the doorway. She looked up, eyes narrowed against the glare. For a moment he was only a shape outlined in light; then she recognized the broad shoulders and height of the king. Slowly she straightened. For the three days of Artor’s visit she had managed to avoid him, but there was no evading a confrontation now.

  “Verica, I must go—make sure that any bags that have gotten moths in them over the winter are taken to the other shed. If we wash the fleeces thoroughly, we may be able to save some of the wool.”

  The younger priestess nodded, and Morgause made her way past the women to the door.

  “Ah—” Artor essayed a smile. “I am glad you came out to me. I would rather charge a Saxon army than intrude on all those chattering girls.”

  “Truly? I thought there was nothing you would not dare—” Morgause fought to keep her tone even.

  Artor shook his head. “Will you walk with me? We need to speak about Medraut.” Together, they moved down the path.

  “What has he done?”

  “Why should you ask that? Was he so difficult a child to raise?” Artor asked quickly.

  Not at all. Not until the last. . . . Morgause pulled her shawl more tightly around her, for clouds were gathering, pushed by a ch
illy wind. “Your tone suggested he was in trouble . . .” she said aloud.

  “On the way north there were . . . accidents. I sent Medraut to the Saxons—to Cynric at Venta Belgarum, who for the sake of his own cub’s life will guard him as the apple of his eye. It would seem that the secret of Medraut’s parentage has become known, and perhaps there are some who think they would be doing me a favor to get rid of him.”

  “Perhaps they are right,” Morgause answered bitterly. “Why should you trust him, when he is what I made him? You have good reason to distrust me.”

  “For the Lady’s sake, Morgause! It may be that he should never have been born, but he is here, and he deserves a chance. I have not come here to blame you, but you know him better than anyone else. Like it or not, he is my son. I need to understand. . . .”

  Morgause stared up at the brother she had hated so long and so intimately betrayed. He was still strong, but there was silver in the brown hair, and his face was carved by lines of responsibility and power. He seemed so sure of himself, as if he had never doubted his own integrity, that she almost began to hate him once more.

  Should I tell him that Medraut is brilliant and seductive and dangerous? How much am 1 willing to admit? How much do I dare? Looking back, the woman who had manipulated and schemed seemed like a stranger, but the reverberations of that woman’s past actions still troubled the present, like the ripples from a cast stone.

  “Medraut is very intelligent,” she said slowly, shame moderating her words. “But his brothers were too much older—he has been very much alone. He does not have much experience of friendship.” She paused. “I raised him to think he had a right to your throne.”

  “That is the one thing I cannot give him,” Artor replied, his gaze troubled. “Even if his birth were acceptable, what I have to leave will go to the man best fitted to hold it. To the man, if there is one, who is chosen by the spirit of this Sword. I told him that. I do not know if he believed me—” he said then, gripping the hilt of the weapon that hung at his side.