Celtika (29 page)

Urtha sympathised with the thinking for his own reasons. He did not want Cunomaglos to fall to a Greeklander’s spear. The intercept must occur before Thermopylae. We should hasten our departure.

The question arose who would tell Mielikki that Argo was to be put under cover, hidden from sight, and deserted for a while.

‘I pissed on her,’ Jason said. ‘I dread to think what she’ll do to me if I go to her.’

All eyes turned on me, but I shook my head. The hawk-flight had been tiring, and I had other things on my mind. But Ullanna reminded me of my own special relationship with Argo. I had no choice but to agree.

*   *   *

She kept me waiting. I hunkered down in the empty ship, conscious of the smell of the horse, whose droppings, scooped and scrubbed away, were still a lingering presence in the air, and called softly and repeatedly for the Old Lady of the Forest. The grim face watched me from the stern, and I felt cold. The smell of winter drove away the smell of horse, and a snowflake settled on my cheek, an icy touch.

Old Lady Forest was not happy. It turned out she had heard us talking.

‘You have sailed me this far, and now intend to leave me!’

The sudden voice from the Spirit of the Ship startled me. I was encompassed in a frozen woodland, crouched in the thick snow, the sun on the splinters of ice and layers of frost that adorned the landscape so bright that I had to squint.

Mielikki, clothed in black bear-fur, face hidden below a voluminous red-green cowl, stalked towards me, kicking up snow in angry clouds. Her lynx growled and spat at me. I rose to meet her.

‘We have to go south, through mountain passes. We can do it fast, on foot and horse. This is the end of the river journey. You’re not being abandoned, just moored in dry dock for a while.’

‘Sail to the sea,’ she said. ‘Then south through the narrow straits, then through the islands to Iolkos, or even to Thessalon. Argo sailed there once before.’

She was referring to the journey Jason had taken, the straits being the dangerous neck of water at the Hellespont. The ship herself was feeding that memory into its protecting goddess. I remembered the length of that journey as if it were yesterday, the long haul around the coast of the wine-dark sea, to Colchis, and across the wide ocean to the treacherous navigation where the mouth of the Daan spread out through a landscape of mud and reeds; then the heavy rowing against the flow as we had struck inland, towards the mountainous land, south of Hyperborea, where now Brennos and his Celtic kin ruled over the world. And my experience of walking the Path around the world told me that the land journey
would
be shorter, though this certainty would have to be tempered by an understanding that on the sea we were at risk only from pirates and such of Poseidon’s malformed sea-creations as he should be inclined to send against us. On land, we faced tribal warlords at the least, and the spirited and well-armed Makedonians if we were unlucky.

The Greeklanders themselves were weak, and had been for some years. Only at Thermopylae could they hold, and Brennos had already outlined his strategy for storming the pass:

‘We move through it like the hot spill from a volcano, burning everything that gets in our way, the living running over the cooling dead! We’ll overwhelm every blade of grass, every blade of iron, every young life that tries to block us.’

He might just do it. These Celts were less mindful of death than the Persians who had stormed the gates four generations ago, and been held back by a small force of Spartans.

Times had changed. When a warrior’s death simply meant a continuance of fighting, albeit in the Otherworld, fighting tended to continue after death.

‘We will not abandon you,’ I said to Mielikki. ‘But the land journey will be faster. After that, we’ll return to you and sail you home.’

Mielikki was angry; and as she paced through the snow in front of me, making a strange sound, like a low song, under her breath, I thought she seemed frightened. At length she came back to me and pulled back the cowl. Her face was almost death-white, the eyes like ice, the mouth thin-lipped; lines of age and experience patterned her skin, and crystals of tears gleamed where they had frozen. She was lovely, but I could see how this woman could turn hard and violent.

‘The one who was here before,’ she said, ‘only visited. She was not always here. She came at her whim, or when this one you call Jason summoned her.’

Mielikki was referring to Hera; Hera had only promised limited advice to Jason, on that voyage. She had been part of a bigger, tighter game being played beyond the mortal realm.

‘Some of the others who were here before, the very old ones, were like me, bound to the ship. They, like me, had no escape. The ship was their world, and the world they had once belonged to was denied to them. The further I go, away from my land, the colder I become. You cannot simply abandon me. I will freeze you all where you stand if you think of doing such a thing.’

I shivered and shook, breath frosting. The Lady of the Forest covered her face again. I said, ‘We can only haul Argo a short way, even with Ruvio. And we are about to move through mountains. The ship must stay.’

‘The ship can stay, but the Spirit of the Ship must be taken,’ Mielikki insisted. ‘It’s only a small part; your carpenters can remove it. It will always be useful to you, Merlin; wraith-ships can be summoned. And besides: you might need to use its spirit again.’

The words were very meaningful. ‘Might I? Why?’

‘The
fierce eyes
that watched you have fled. She left the ship almost as soon as we came ashore. She fled on the wing.’

‘As a raven,’ I breathed. When Mielikki didn’t respond I asked outright. ‘As a raven?’

‘A dark bird. She is very angry; and she is very dangerous.’

‘And she hates me. I know.’

‘She is afraid of you. She is afraid of Jason.’

Mielikki’s words were tantalising.

Afraid of us? Hating me? That girl from my past? If Mielikki could know this much, she
must
know more. I begged her to tell me more. All she said was, ‘I am not like the one who sailed with Argo in Jason’s day. That one—’

‘Hera. A goddess.’

‘That one, by whatever name, was stronger than me. She could enter the Spirit of the Ship. She played a game with the men who rowed Argo. Older guardians were more respectful of this ship, and I will respect her too. But, Merlin, I can only glimpse the shadows that move, this way, that way, across the threshold. If I could tell you more about Fierce Eyes, then I would. If you abandon me, I can’t help you. If you won’t sail me, carry me with you. The land beyond the threshold goes in many directions. I’m useful.’

*   *   *

I left Argo and sought out Jason. He listened carefully to what I told him and together we again estimated the sailing time to the ocean, then along the western coast, through the narrow straits, the clashing rocks, and across the island-studded ocean to Thessalon, Artemisium, or anywhere on that coast where we might put ashore and make our way inland to intercept Brennos.

We would be with the flow of the Daan, not rowing against it, we agreed, but it would still be best to go by horse. We had seven horses, not including Ruvio, and Ruvio could haul a loaded wagon easily.

Everything indicated that a land journey was the most practical. But I was concerned for Argo, and, to my surprise, so was Jason.

‘If we abandon her, she’s right: she might fall into the wrong hands. She might even be broken up for winter fuel. And I hadn’t known we would have to return this freezing Lady to her homeland.’

He folded his arms on the table where the crude map of our journey was still spread out. Rubobostes was singing loudly as he added wood to the fire in the enclosure, and beyond the gate the horses were being cantered through their paces under the watchful eyes of the Cymbrii.

‘I agree,’ he said at length. ‘We’ll hide her well. In the woods, there. We’ll return and sail her again. That makes a lot of sense. Bring Argo’s heart if you must, but cut it lean when you cut it from the ship. Wood is heavy and we’re not going to be riding across some summer pasture.’

He tapped the map with a finger, thinking hard.

It took me a moment to realise I had been dismissed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Blood Rage

The hounds sniffed me out again. I was huddled in a new hollow, cold and confused, my arm still aching where the slingshot had struck it, my joints stiff with the sudden surge of age that my body had taken.

Gelard nosed up to me, wetly, its breath reeking of meat. I was ready to shout abuse at Niiv, the beast’s designated handler, but it was Urtha himself who leaned down through my feeble screen of branches and leaves and grinned at me.

‘So there you are.’

‘Go away. I need time to myself.’

‘Your lover is sulking. She’s frantic, looking for you.’

‘She’s not my lover!’ I shouted furiously at the warlord, before realising I was being teased.

‘Too skinny, eh?’ he laughed, then pushed through the foliage to step down into the hollow.

‘Too dangerous.’

The dogs panted and watched until ordered to sit and be quiet, an instruction which they promptly obeyed. ‘But she’s got under your skin, all right. I can tell that.’

‘Deeper than my skin,’ I confided, and Urtha nodded as if he understood what I meant. He sighed.

‘Ullanna’s the same. When I’m in a blood rage I’m aware of her, close by, keeping quiet. Then suddenly her hands are on my face, or my shoulders, and the blood rage subsides. Then she sits with me and banters on about the
tundra,
whatever the fuck that is, and the hunting, and the winters in the hills, waiting for war against some stinking band of horsemen I’ve never heard of, and repeats the sort of jokes they tell each other to while away the time, the women, who are as wild and wicked as the men, if not wilder. And I laugh, Merlin. She makes me laugh. And if one part of what she claims to have done in her life on horse and with spear and sword is true, then she could silence a poet in my household every night for a full cycle of the moon! I like her. I like her very much. She makes me laugh.’

‘Well, that’s good. Isn’t it?’

He looked at me sharply, almost painfully. ‘I can’t afford to laugh, Merlin. I need that blood rage. Nothing can continue until Cunomaglos is silent on the hard earth, open-breasted, crow-feasted. Do you understand? Aylamunda is in my heart. She shouts to me in my sleep. In my sleep. I put my arms around her. Do you understand?’

I told him that I did. For the first time in a long time Urtha had shaved his cheeks, trimmed his beard, and cut his neck hair short. It was a smart look. The hair on his crown was stiffened slightly, ready for the application of limewater, to make that odd spine of spikes that these warriors considered an appropriate design for battle.

This young man looked clean and handsome, and there was a sparkle in his eyes that told less of hate than of interest.

He was not ready to lose hate, however. And he was at risk of losing it.

As if he had intuited my sudden awareness, he repeated, ‘I
need
the blood rage.’

He was asking me to help him. To help keep him angry. To keep reminding him that his wife and son had been abandoned, slaughtered, were to be avenged.

I nodded agreement, and he seemed satisfied.

‘I need the blood rage.’

‘I know you do. And Cunomaglos will encounter it. Jason will hold your spears. I’ll tend to your wounds. We’ll both abuse Cunomaglos.’

‘Only while he’s alive.’

‘But of course.’

‘When he’s dead, the abuse is all mine!’

‘Of course.’

‘Thank you.’ He turned to me again and grinned, once more teasing. ‘So she’s got under your skin, then?’ he repeated, prodding my shoulder. ‘A little bit of Niiv in the young-old man’s heart?’

‘Deeper than that. It’s not my heart that worries me. There’s a blade of ice in my heart, and I can use it well.’

Again: I was opening my mind to this brazen, brash young Celt.

‘Ah,’ he said, slapping his hands together. ‘Of course. Those bones. Those old, carved bones of yours. She got that deep, eh?’

‘Yes. She did. And I don’t see why you are so amused.’

‘Perhaps because I don’t understand. In fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time. About your bones. If I understand you correctly, your bones are patterned with spells and magic and enchantment and various recipes for all that woodbark, leaf-mould, red-ochre shit the druids pretend to know about and usually don’t, though I have to say it often works…’

‘My bones are marked with charm, yes.’

‘Charm! Yes, of course. Well, what I wondered was: when you die, and all of this ugly flesh rots away,’ he patted my cheek and pinched my arm, ‘this ugly, ageing flesh, scavenged by rats and wild dogs, and carrion birds, and all the rest, all those creatures that aren’t too fussy about the meat they eat, and just the bones are left, just the magic bones, poor old dead Merlin’s bones…’

‘What are you trying to say, Urtha?’

‘Well, will they be of use to someone like me? If I kept them for
personal
use?’

I stared at him. Was he joking? Was he serious? I was beginning to realise that with Urtha, a substantial part of life was a game. The difficulty was, a substantial part of life was also to be taken deadly seriously.

‘Why are you asking me this, Urtha? Are you planning to kill me? If so, think again. There’s a curse built into the magic I hide below my flesh.’

Urtha was delighted at the idea. ‘Could you build such a curse into me? That would be wonderful. To die honourably is one thing, but too often we die with a spear in the back. A curse that stalks the killer would be a wonderful gift. I leave you to decide, of course.’

‘Why are you asking me all this?’ I demanded again, increasingly irritable with this inquisitive intermission in Urtha’s blood rage. ‘Are you trying to cheer me up? If so, go away. I have other things to think about. And the last thing I need is for you to start considering my skeleton as trophy should I catch the wrong arrow.’