Bard I (15 page)

‘Brother, you’re but half awake yet,’ Veronica said tartly. ‘Felimid cannot go asking questions of the town hangman, unless he wants to become a subject for the fellow’s art! You and I will go.’

‘Ah, no. I’m grateful for the thought, but I must inquire myself, Veronica. It’s only I can know what’s important and what is not, or which answers to fish for. Besides, this Festus may have been in the plot to steal the body himself. If he was it will be a delicate business teasing the truth out of him.’

Veronica said with certainty, ‘Your brains have rotted! Let him recognise you—’

‘Let him recognise me and I may still be able to induce him to stay quiet, for the love of me and justice. Sure, and I know the risks I run. For Kincaid, I cannot leave this to another, that’s all, Veronica . . . not even you, though I know you’d be adroit.’

Regan said shrewdly, across Veronica’s protests, ‘Suppose the hangman is a rogue. Then he’d more likely keep silent if you had gold to give him, wouldn’t he? He’d not wish to have to explain where he got it.’

Felimid had sometimes, and with some justification, been called a fool; but never slow of wit. He grinned broadly.

‘Oho! Are you talking of the Lord Avraig’s gold? I forgot all about it– but you did not,
acushla
. Is that it?’ Biting her lip, Regan nodded. She looked like a child of five years caught stealing honey. ‘I’d have told you . . . but. . .’

‘You’d no certainty of the future, and gold always helps, if you don’t wake up murdered because of it. I know. Better look in your satchel to see if our crafty visitor found it.’

The Lord Avraig’s gold had not been taken. Felimid would accept only a small part of it; an ornate cloak pin, and a length of gold wire. He’d little use for gold in any case. Food and shelter were his for the asking wherever he went; his song and his harping was the coin he used.

‘The rest is yours,’ he said. ‘I’d donate some to the church, were I you, and become a pillar of the community– and gain the bishop’s goodwill and protection, too.· He yawned. ‘Sigumus, Brych, Veronica, will you stop pawing goggle-eyed through Regan’s loot? It will still be here tomorrow for you to wonder at. Take it upstairs and gloat by candle-light if you must.’

‘I must!’ Veronica said at once. ‘You be cloyed if you will. We’re not all familiar to boredom with the sight of gold.’

The three retreated upstairs, leaving Felimid and Regan alone. Felimid took her in his arms at once; they kissed hungrily. She sunk eagerly to his pallet by the fire; her shift was bunched under her arms in a moment, and cast off entirely in another . . . At last they slept, and did not dream.

At dawn Felimid put on clothes of Sigumus’s giving. He ate a meal of porridge, bacon and eggs large enough for two before setting out to visit the hangman. He wasn’t sure that he’d care to eat afterwards.

The house was a stone cottage scrubbed and sanded to shining, neat as the purring cat by the door.

Festus the hangman hummed contentedly to himself as he dug his garden. He spaded the earth methodically, not wasting his strength, a rotund little man with a comfortable belly and surprising heft of useful muscle under his plumpness. His hair was silky white, his beard full, his pink skin youthful, his age safe from guesses. He beamed at his visitor.

‘Good day to you, stranger,’ he said.

‘Good day,’ Felimid replied. ‘You dig your garden early.’

‘The best time!’ Festus asserted, smiling. ‘When your fast is broken, when you have watched the dawn fade and morning begin while your food settles, and the peace of your night’s rest is still on you . . . the best time. Some say evening, to lose the cares of the day, but then I have no cares. I’m a happy man.’

Felimid blinked. ‘I may be mistaken. I came seeking the town hangman.’

‘The kingdom’s hangman! I am he. You had pictured some dull-eyed brawny oaf, no doubt, whom you would not trust to butcher a sheep cleanly, never mind a man. I have two assistants of that sort, and I keep them only because I cannot find better in these degenerate times. They have just understanding enough to tie a proper knot. God know what disgrace they will bring upon my memory when r am gone! But I’m truly the hangman, sir.’

Felimid’s neck had begun to ache. He resisted the urge to rub it.

He said, ‘It’s a bad thing I have to tell you, then.

Wasn’t there a bandit leader you swung from the gibbet nine nights past? And didn’t his corpse mysteriously vanish?’

The hangman’s brown eyes sharpened their gaze. although his merry smile never faltered. ‘There was! Assuredly there was, but how does it interest you, whom I have never seen until now?’

‘Because, although you’d not think it to see me, I’m a king’s son of the Summer Country. My men and I were camped in the open one night as we journeyed to Calleva. I awoke naked by the cold ashes of our fire, to find my followers had vanished, and all our goods, gear and horses. Nothing was left; nothing!

‘I smelled a reek of death unburied, and nearby lay something that didn’t belong there. I’ve a notion it may be part of your hanged outlaw.’

Felimid spoke simply and straightforwardly, his diction that of a prince, his manner that of one who simply does not conceive that his tale may not be credited. In essence it was what had happened. If the hangman could make sense of it, no doubt he’d enjoy explaining. If he couldn’t, let him assume the ‘prince’s’ retinue had deserted him for some reason.

Said Festus abruptly, ‘Young sir, come within.’ The bard followed him into the cottage and seated himself without hesitation or comment. Playing a prince’s part, he assumed a prince’s perogatives.

‘This thing you spoke of,’ Festus muttered. ‘Was it a severed hand?’

‘Yes! Cured and dried, clutching a corpse-fat candle burned to a stub.’

‘The Devil’s Candle.’ Festus’s smile had quite gone.

‘It’s an evil thing.’

‘So much I’ve surmised. but what is its use?’

‘Magic. young sir! Of the most wicked and godless kind! A candle rendered from the corpse of a hanged felon unburied, with a wick twisted of his hair. and his left hand preserved thus and so for a holder, is a potent thief’s talisman.

‘The thief enters a house by night. Or a camp of travellers, as it was with you. He lights the candle, and all in the house will sleep as long as it burn; or if it will not burn, he knows by that token that someone remains awake, do you see? But only the most degenerate and vile of thieves dare use it. And indeed, it’s well that you come to me by daylight, for I would not talk of such things after dark.’

‘Nor would I, from choice. Well then, since you know so much, can you advise me? How may J trace the thieves who did this thing?’

‘Someone made the Devil’s Candle for them, young sir,’ the hangman said. ‘There is a witch who dwells in the hills north of here. and I’d guess that she wrought it. For my part I’d piously rejoice to have the hanging of her, as our bishop would to bring it about. But . . . there are reasons why not.’ He coughed. ‘To say truth, she prophesied when our king’s heir was born that he’d be a mighty warrior, which he’s become, in truth. Thus he has a softness for the creature, and will not have her harmed for all her wickedness. I fear it wouldn’t be politic, young sir, to appeal him-ward for help.’

‘Appeal!’ Felimid played the royal youth affronted.

‘Light of the Worshipped Sun! Do you suppose I’d go before a king or his heir with such a sorry tale as I’ve told you? Never! Until I find those who perpetrated this shame, and wash it out in their gore. I’ll not appear before the face of any king! No, not my own father!’

An outburst, Felimid felt, worthy of the deceased Lord Avraig, who had inspired it. It was much the sort of thing that arrogant jackass would have said.

He had what he’d come for, Felimid reckoned. Now he must leave the town before his luck failed. He wanted, in most urgent wise, a horse and weapon, which meant finding Kyle and asking to borrow them; a chancy course. The risk existed of meeting Prince Justin.

Felimid smiled to himself. He’d have to run the risk. Prince Justin rarely rose from his bed before noon, anyhow, except to hunt or make war.

He left the cheerful hangman with thanks for hi advice.

Past man’s prediction is March’s wild weather,

Winter contesting his empire with spring;

Last night in blankets, this night in the heather,

Neither do I know what morning will bring.

I’ve traded my tatters for linen and leather,

I sit a fine horse and I want but one thing.

Felimid mac Fal,
The Seeking of Kincaid

K
ING
A
GLOVAL
KEPT
MORE
THAN
A
HUNDRED
HORSES
. His stables were of greater extent than his royal mansion, which had once been the house of a Roman magistratus most impressively venal and corrupt. Both were hard by the forum and basilica of the town.

Men were mucking out when Felimid arrived. They tipped baskets of manure into a cart in the middle of the yard, while around the walls horses were being saddled for exercise-or hunting. Felimid thought with a flash of unease.

In one corner, a blacksmith rasped at the hoof of a tall dun gelding preparatory to shoeing it. The dun fidgeted. Felimid held its head and murmured horse-talk as the smith cursed its restive hide.

‘The Lord Kyle,‘Felimid said. ‘Is he about?’

‘In yon stall, asleep,’ the smith grunted, ‘and it’s little of the lord he looks at present. He’s been up all night with a mare that made hard work o’ foaling, him. He wouldn’t wake for the Trump of Judgement.’

‘I’ll awaken him,’·Felimid said.

The Lord Kyle was King Agloval’s Master of Horse. He led the household riders in war, and was responsible for the royal stables in peace. They had first met in the glorious year of Badon. when the greatest Saxon war­host ever brought together in the island had been broken and scattered down White Horse Yale. Indeed, they had both fought in the battle.

Through Kyle, Felimid had met Gavrus and his family, for most of the royal horses’ trappings came from Gavrus’ workshop; saddles. harness, head and chest-armour of boiled leather. Felimid loved horses as much as Kyle, while the horse-lord loved song and story as much as Felimid. They were friends. He’d lend a weapon and beast of his own if the wanderer but spoke his need.

The bard pictured Kyle in ragged trews and nothing else, mucky with birth-juices and blood, full length on reeking straw. And he the peacock of the king’s retinue! Gleeful, Felimid polished some remarks.

They were never used. The dun threw up its head, snorting, and this time it was not restiveness but fear. Felimid turned to see what had alarmed it. He’d half a notion before he looked.

Prince Justin was coming across the yard, with four of his cronies. Big. powerful, roughly handsome and brutal, that was Justin. Time and indulgence would coarsen him, although it had not happened yet. He was the same age as the bard.

They had disliked each other from the day they met.

‘You must be mad to show your face here,’ Justin said. ‘Aye, and raving mad! But I’m glad of your madness. There are words of yours to be accounted for, trifler.’

With nothing to lose, Felimid grinned. ‘It rankles yet, does it? My satire is repeated about the town and you cannot abide knowing it! The greater clown is he when he comes, and the more refined is the source of derision . . .’

‘Enough, fool!’ yelled one of Justin’s hangers-on.

‘And say Lord Prince when you speak to him!’

His Lord Prince ignored him. So did the bard. Very magnificent and overbearing Justin looked in his saffron tunic and long white cloak, pinned at the shoulder with ornate gold. He was mighty and fearless in battle, and Felimid knew nothing else at all that might be said to his credit.

‘Those words, and others,’ Justin said. ‘Yet I may not kill you. I may part you from toes, fingers and tongue and let you live. Be grateful, rhyme-cobbler.’

Felimid wasn’t. The time for talk had passed. He could either fight or flee, and at odds of five to one the latter seemed best. He was unarmed; they all wore swords though they did not seem to suppose that they might need them, and the thought of mutilation did not delight him.

He moved. He sprang to the dun gelding’s back with a hand in its mane before one of his tormentors could take a step towards him. The horse reared. Felimid kept his scat in the stirrupless saddle and dug in his heels. He burst through the half circle of malice that faced him, scattering the prince and his cronies. By way of thanking the dun. he kicked it to greater speed. He’d had enough of Calleva-town.

Out of the yard, he turned the dun’s head for the main street, which ran north. Past the house of Gavrus and the Christian church he rushed, with whirling cloak and uneven clatter of hooves. Past the stately forum and basilica on his right, through a press and scramble of sheep he went (how they bleated and smelled!), turning for the north gate along a shop-lined street. by a number of empty. dilapidated houses that merged in a blur. Dogs ran eagerly at the dun flying heels, ducks and hens fled with their characteristic noises from under its forehooves. The guards at the north gate faced outward. and were too late to dispute the bard’s leaving. Timbers rattled hollow beneath him, briefly. Then he was gone.

Pale windy blue. Long wet grass. Oakwoods budding early. Softening fields ripe for the plough and sheep on the hills due for hearing. Felimid rode a storm of raging muscle in a gallop that never slackened. Gape of peasants, frenzy of dogs. Laughter, ripped from between Felimid’s teeth by a flaying wind that yet held a promise of gentle weather to come.

The harp Golden Singer jolted in her bag on his back. It was no danger to her. That unimpressive-looking bag had been made by the dark people of hills, and whatever it contained was charmed against all manner of decay, or damage, or injury. On!

Field and wood were left behind for a maze of low craggy hills clad in purple heather and golden gorse, with hard grey rocks jutting forth. As Felimid crested a frowning rise, he risked looking back. Five men rode after him, not that he’d expected aught else. And there was no mistakening the white mantle of he who led.