The Hallowed Isle Book Two Read online

  “Do you think that several thousand men and all their gear are moved into place by magic, as they say Merlin sang up the stones to make your father’s monument? There is still a great deal of planning yet to do . . .”

  As the group started back toward the buildings, Merlin fell into step beside them. Artor had learned enough to sense his presence—Gerontius started and went for his sword when the dark shape appeared at the king’s elbow, but Artor only sighed.

  “Your teaching is done for the evening, but there is still time for some of mine,” Merlin said to the warrior. “Take the others back to camp. I have something to show the king.”

  “He must be guarded—” objected Gerontius.

  “Do you doubt my ability to protect him?” He drew in a breath of power, holding it until even the warrior must be able to see his glow.

  “Do you doubt that I will track you down and break every sorcerous bone in your body if you fail?”

  “Stop it!” exclaimed Artor. “I feel like the bone, with two dogs growling over it. Go on, Gerontius. I’m sure we will be back soon.”

  “Yes, my lord—” Gerontius’s voice was harsh with reluctance, but he obeyed.

  “We will be back soon, won’t we?” asked Artor when he had gone. “I’ve worked hard this evening, and I’m tired.”

  “No. But we will take horses, so you can at least sit down.”

  Artor stopped short. “Horses? Where are we going at this hour?”

  Don’t you trust me? thought Merlin, but trust and reason made poor bedfellows. He remembered suddenly something that the Saxon witch had told him about her god, that he sometimes seemed treacherous, betraying men for their own good, or some purpose greater still. Maybe he himself was a little like Woden after all. If you learn to trust me in small things, that I can explain, perhaps you will obey when the time comes to follow my lead without knowing why. . . .

  “We go to the Giant’s Dance. It lies six miles hence. If we go now we can be there before the moon is high, and I do not know when we will be in this part of the country again.”

  There was a long silence. “My father is buried there. . .” Artor said at last. “Very well. I will come with you.”

  The standing stones cast long shadows, stark in the moonlight. In silence Artor and Merlin rode around the circle. The plain stretched away before them to a horizon dim with distance, its pale, moonwashed expanse broken only by the line of mounds.

  “Who set up those stones? What are they for?” asked Artor, eyeing the henge circle uneasily.

  His father had asked the same thing. Remembering, Merlin began to tell him of the ancient tribes and how they had watched the stars.

  “The plain is so empty,” Artor whispered when he had finished, “as if we were the only living beings in the world.”

  Merlin looked around him, seeing with spirit sight the need-fire that danced above the mounds.

  “The only ones living, perhaps—but these spaces are thronging with the spirits of those who have gone before. That is what I have brought you here to learn. All things pass, but nothing is lost.”

  Artor swallowed. “Where is my father’s grave?”

  Merlin pointed toward the last of the mounds, the one they had raised next to the mound of the lords killed in the Night of the Long Knives.

  “He lies there, with Ambrosius his brother.”

  “I never knew him . . . If I could meet him now, I wonder what wisdom he might have for me?”

  “They say that if a man sits out the night on a sacred mound, by morning he will be mad, or dead, or a poet. We must be back at the camp before dawn, but if you wish, you might sit there for a little while.”

  “Is it dangerous?” Artor’s voice, the druid was pleased to note, held not fear, but a healthy caution.

  “The dangers are those you bring with you,” he answered. “Anger for anger, fear for fear. Remember what I have taught you, and you will do well.”

  And if he does not, I may as well go back to my northern forest and stay there, Merlin thought wryly, for my life will not be worth a denarius here! But his fear was not for the boy’s physical safety. If Artor failed this testing, then everything for which Merlin had worked and suffered would be lost as well. And for the druid, this place held its own dangers; it would be fatally easy to come too close to the nexus of powers that met here, and be drawn through into some other world.

  And so, as the young king took his place upon the mound that held his father’s bones, Merlin his teacher sat down upon a boulder a little to one side of the line of power that ran from it to the henge of stones, to watch with him while the moon sailed serenely westward and the skies wheeled towards dawn.

  When, in the grey hour before sunrise, the druid called his charge to come down from the mound so that they could begin the ride back to Sorviodunum, the boy’s face was drawn, his eyes scarcely seeming to focus on the world. It was not until they were nearly back to the encampment and the first streaks of light were awakening the sky that Artor sighed and the bleak look began to leave his eyes.

  “Did your father speak to you?”

  “Don’t you know?” The boy’s voice held mixed wonder and bitterness.

  “You are a child of prophecy, as am I, but our choices are our own. And this was your mystery,” Merlin said gently. I must learn . . . he told himself, to let him go.

  “Yes . . . I think he did . . .” Artor answered then. But he would not tell what the spirit of his father had said to him.

  Oesc caught the blur of motion against the blue sky and dodged, thrusting up his wooden shield. The stave thwacked home with a force that nearly knocked him from his feet. He stumbled backward, shield-arm throbbing.

  “You blocked well, but you were off-balance,” said Byrhtwold, resting the oak stave on the ground and leaning on it.

  “That hurt.” Oesc let the shield slip off and rubbed his shoulder.

  “No doubt. But without the shield a blow like that would have broken your arm.”

  “If I had a weapon I could hit you back,” said Oesc. “You act as if I were still twelve winters old!”

  “Maybe, but if you lose your blade in battle, only your shield will save you until you can grab another weapon,” the old man replied. “Because you have been in a battle you think you are a warrior. I think you have habits which you must unlearn. So we go back to the beginning. When you can hold me off with shield alone you can practice with the blade. In the meantime, keep strengthening your sword arm.”

  “Chopping wood?” Oesc asked with a sigh. “That’s thralls’ work, I only did it before to strengthen my arm.”

  Byrhtwold grinned. “But good practice. And if you cannot master the skills of the folk who serve you, how will you keep them to their work?”

  Oesc nodded, recognizing the futility of argument, and Byrhtwold handed him the stave.

  “Tomorrow morning we will practice again.” Byrhtwold turned away, then paused, relenting. “Be patient, lad—you will be chopping something more than wood soon enough. Ceretic has asked that you come with the men your grandfather is sending to Venta Belgarum. You are going to war.”

  Oesc stood watching as the warrior walked away, his mind in a whirl. The morning was sunny, though great puffy clouds like hanks of wool were moving in from the west, casting dappled shadows across the wall of the old theatre that dominated the remainder of the city like an old oak, after a storm has blasted all the lesser trees. No doubt there would be rain before evening. When his father first brought him to Cantuware, he had thought the buildings that still stood in Durovernum the work of etins. Then he had seen Eburacum and Verulamium, noble still despite their battle-scars.

  But Venta had never been destroyed. Venta had welcomed the Saxons as the rightful heirs to the empire, as Gallia was welcoming the Franks even now, and the Visigoths had been received in Iberia. Even Durovernum was becoming Cantuwaraburh on men’s tongues. We are the future, he thought, and if he marched with Ceretic, his own name might live in th
at future as well.

  Ceretic assembled his allies in the fields outside of the old naval fortress of Portus Adurni that another German, the admiral Carausius, had built long ago, and there they held the feast of Ostara. It was a tribal celebration, in the old style of Germania, meant to remind men of their common heritage. The penned animals moved anxiously, as if aware of their role in the proceedings, but the rest of the camp hummed with anticipation.

  Scouts had confirmed the rumors. The British princes were advancing, led by Docomaglos of Dumnonia with his sons and the boy whom they had made their king. Leonorus Maglos had fled Venta, and Ceretic had no desire to test the enthusiasm of his allies by exposing them to a seige. It would be better to meet the foe in open battle on the flood plain across from the Isle of Vecta, where the estuary of the Icene met the sea.

  In the midst of the fields was a fine grove of oak trees. Here, some Roman had set up an offering tablet to Mercurius. It had been abandoned when the Christians came and grown over with vines until Ceretic had claimed the place and raised beside it an altar of heaped stones.

  Oesc stood holding the tether of the white ox that Hengest had sent for the sacrifice. Across the field he could see the fyrd of Cantuware, farmers who had left their fields at their king’s command, and the professional warriors of Hengest’s household who had come to guard his heir. The ox stamped, and rubbed its head against his thigh, rocking him on his feet and leaving a smear of white hairs across the crimson wool of his tunic and knocking off some of the primrose blossoms from the wreath around its horns, then bent and lipped up more of the grain that had been poured out for it. A little of Oesc’s anxiety eased. It was holy corn, mixed with sacred herbs and blessed by the priests, and for the ox to eat it signified acceptance of its role as offering.

  He could see Hæthwæge standing with the other god-folk who had been assembled to bless the proceedings: the ancient Godwulf, who had once served at the court of Vitalinus, and two witegas who had been brought over from Germania with the most recent shipload of warriors. From the eagerness with which they surveyed the cattle, he guessed it had been some time since they had had sufficient beasts on which to practice their craft.

  In the space between the animals and the men of the army three tumblers were performing, while another beat out a cheerful rhythm on a small hand drum. As the day drew towards its nooning, the clouds began to part, and the bits of metal sewn to the players clothes flashed and glittered in the sun. Then the light broke through completely, and from within the sacred grove came the call of a horn.

  The chieftains who held the nine white horses began to lead them forward, followed by the oxen. As the beast next to him moved out, Oesc jerked on the halter of his animal and joined the line. From the sound, the pigs were being brought up behind them; he pitied the men who had to keep them under control.

  In slow procession, men and beasts moved sunwise around the grove. Aelle’s son Cymen was just ahead of him, with another ox, even bigger than his own. Men of the fyrd stepped out from the encircling crowd as they passed, draping the beasts with additional garlands, or simply patting the smooth hides as they murmured their prayers—“Let me fight bravely!” “May I kill many of the enemy!” and sometimes, “May the gods bring me safely home.”

  As they came around for the second time, each animal was led inside the grove. The beasts were becoming more restive as the blood-scent grew stronger, but when Oesc’s turn came the ox followed docilely down the well-trodden path.

  The heads and skins of the earlier victims already hung from the trees. Now the ox did plant his feet, nostrils flaring, and though the boy tugged on the rope, refused to stir. As Oesc struggled to make it move, Hæthwæge came forward, singing softly, a spray of ash leaves in her hand. He recognized “Ger” the rune of harvest, and “Sigel” for victory. At the sound, the ox calmed and stood quietly as the wicce moved around him, brushing the leaves across head and back and flanks.

  Ceretic came after her, a knife in his hand. He cut a pinch of hair from the curling cowlick on the animal’s forehead and stepped back, holding it high.

  “Woden, to you this ox is offered, for you made holy. Accept it, War-father, and give us the victory!”

  The air around the altar tingled with the energy of the blood that had been spilled already. As the war-leader spoke, wind whispered in the leaves and lifted the hair from Oesc’s brow, and as Ceretic opened his fingers, the white hairs whirled away.

  Hæthwæge’s fingers closed over Oesc’s hand on the rope, and the ox followed them to the altar, where the butcher was waiting. He was a huge man, heavily muscled, with a hammer in his hand. As the ox reached the edge of the blood pit, he swung. There was a loud thunk as the hammer hit, and the ox went to its knees.

  For a moment Oesc simply stared. Then he remembered to draw his seax, and Hæthwæge guided his hand to the pulsing vein in the throat of the ox and he struck and pulled the blade through.

  The animal jerked, but within seconds the gush of blood dropped its internal pressure past the point of pain and the breath sighed out through the sliced windpipe in long gasps. Like everyone, Oesc had helped with the butchering each autumn, and when he was hunting, given the mercy stroke to hares or deer. Death was always serious, but he had never before understood that it was holy.

  “Make your prayer now—” whispered the wisewoman, holding a brass bowl underneath the ox and letting it fill with blood.

  “Woden, receive this spirit, and fill us with your soul. Father of Victory, bring my men back home to their fields, and me to my grandfather’s hall!”

  The eyes of the ox were dull already, and he could feel the life of the body ebbing from the flesh beneath his hands like grain from a torn bag. But the grain still existed even when the bag was empty, and he had the sense that the life of the ox had not been extinguished so much as drawn away.

  Your flesh will give us power! he thought. May my own blood, when the time comes, be as good an offering!

  The blood was draining now in spurts. Hæthwæge took Oesc’s arm and pulled him to his feet, and as the last of the flow dribbled into the pit, men looped ropes around the ox’s feet and hauled it away to be skinned and butchered for the feast that would follow. The wicce dipped the spray of leaves into the blood and sprinkled Oesc, then handed it to the boy and gave him the bowl.

  Still dazed, Oesc made his way out of the grove to bless the men whom he hoped to lead to victory.

  The armies came to battle three days later, under weeping skies. The Saxons formed their shieldwall on the shores of one of the streams that came down to the sound, feet planted in the muddy soil, watching the British cavalry sweep towards them across the plain. Rather than creating a solid line, Ceretic had ordered each contingent to form a wedge, so that more of the spears could come into play. It was a saw-edge that would cut the British to pieces, he had told them, riding up and down along the river bank.

  Now the commander stood with his hearth-companions at the center, his white horse led off by a thrall to the rear. If he turned his head, Oesc could see the gleam of the gilded boar image that crowned the steel crest of Ceretic’s helmet. On the other side, Aelle waited with his sons beside him. Oesc’s helm was rounded, with a nasal and side flaps, and ringmail hanging around the back and sides. Beneath tunic and mail shirt he was sweating, but most of his men would fight with no more protection than a leather cap banded in iron, bodies defended only by their shields.

  Beyond the reed beds, pewter-colored waters stretched away to a smudge of darker grey that was the island. Above the army, gulls rode the wind, crying like wælcyriges seeking out the slain. Soon they would be able to make their choices. The British were drawing steadily closer, trotting in close formation. Their shields were painted Roman-fashion, each contingent bearing its own device. He could see the glitter of their lance-heads as they came on. Perspiration made his hand slip on the shaft of his own throwing spear. Oesc leaned it against his shield, wiped his palm on the skirts of his tunic a
nd grasped the javelin once more. Hæthwæge had a spear, he thought suddenly, as powerful as Artor’s legendary sword. Why, he wondered, had Hengest not ordered her to bring it to war? When they got home he would ask her.

  If he got home. . . . The British were cantering now, nearing with appalling speed. Surely the river would slow them, he thought, and then the hooves of the horses were churning the water into arcs of glittering spray. They surged up the bank like a rising wave, lancepoints dipping in deadly unison.

  Oesc set his feet in the mud, lifted his left arm and felt his shield braced by those of Byrhtwold on one side and Eadric on the other, and raised his right arm, spear poised to throw. Wild-eyed horses expanded to fill his vision, the faces of the riders contorted above their shields. He felt a yell leave his throat, lost in the roar of the Saxon battle cry.

  A ripple of motion swept the shield wall. Instinctively his arm swung forward, releasing the spear. Here and there the oncoming tide of horsemen faltered, but that first flight of spears was not enough to stop them. Oesc hunched behind his shield, straining to hold it in place between the others as an oncoming horseman struck the line.

  The shieldwall rocked backward, and for a moment Oesc was lifted off his feet, but he did not fall. The enemy horse, pierced by spiked shield-bosses, reared, screaming. A lance thrust down at him, passing just above his shoulder. Oesc managed to get his sword free, and glimpsing a mailed body, stabbed upward. For a moment he felt as if he were supporting the entire weight of man and horse, then the foe recoiled and he caught his breath once more.

  The British riders had broken the shield hedge in several places, and were in amongst the Saxons, stabbing with lance and sword. Others had swirled off to either side in an attempt to outflank them. Over the tumult Oesc glimpsed a dragon banner that he supposed must belong to Artor. It was being carried by a big man with dark hair. Then a horse loomed suddenly above him; a sword clanged against his shield boss and he gave ground, and for a long time after that was too busy to think about anything at all.