Dragon's Child (55 page)

The Bleeding Pool was well named, for the waters gleamed with a viscous hue that was reminiscent of old, thick blood.

Artorex was essentially a man of action. Once committed to a task, he set his sights firmly on his goal.

Fearlessly, he waded out into the shallows.

Oddly, he initially expected that the water would have the consistency and warmth of blood. But it was icy cold and, when he cupped it in his hands, he found it was clear and clean.

Artorex was fascinated by this optical illusion for, in the light of the flaming torch, he could swear that he was bathing in gore.

‘Take your time, Artorex,’ Myrddion advised. ‘You must start at the edge and feel for the crown with your hands and feet as you go.’

‘Shouldn’t we help him?’ Gruffydd asked his master.

‘Artorex must find Uther’s relics for himself. That is the task that has been set by Lucius, and we must abide by it. In that way he will never need to speak false to any warrior, villager or noble. You are our witness, for these are great events that transpire around us.’

Gruffydd paled.

Meanwhile, Artorex was patiently sifting his way through the impenetrable waters. The natural amphitheatre was silent, except for the murmur of water from the roof. The cold was beginning to numb his fingers when Artorex suddenly felt an underwater obstruction with one foot.

Despite his natural loathing for the waters in which he now waded, Artorex was excited by the boyish hunt for hidden treasure. He negotiated his way blindly over the smooth stones until his fingers eventually found a hard object wrapped in coarse fabric.

Exultantly, he heaved its unexpected weight to the surface.

As he waded out of the pool, Artorex ripped the sodden, stained homespun wool away from the concealed circlet. For a moment, the massive band of red gold seemed a part of the Bleeding Pool itself, especially as huge garnets were set at regular intervals around the rim of the embossed gold. The stones winked at him like the little red eyes of a dragonlet.

‘Guard this trinket for me, Myrddion, for our task is but half finished.’

Myrddion slung the heavy crown over one arm at the elbow, covered it with his cloak and gave his other hand to Artorex, helping him out of the chill waters.

‘I can hear raised voices,’ Myrddion announced cheerfully. ‘One of them belongs to Luka, our argumentative friend. Perhaps we should rescue him from Gawayne’s temper, which is none too stable at best.’

Neither Artorex, nor even the sharp-eared Gruffydd had heard a sound.

By the time they climbed back to the surface and reached the light, Luka was visible in the distance as he attempted to bar Gawayne’s entrance into the small stone chapel. The younger man was already flushed with anger and, remembering Gawayne’s maddened rages, Artorex roared out to Luka to allow the troop from Venta Belgarum to pass unhindered.

Luka smiled at Gawayne with deceptive sweetness, stepped aside and whispered softly, ‘Later, my young princeling. We - you and I - will speak again when this business is finished.’

Then he joined his friends.

‘What of the church spire?’ Artorex asked quickly.

‘If Lucius hid it in the church, it’s too well concealed for my eyes. Besides, there’s no spire, and I’ve got an ache in my neck from staring at all the ceilings. Most are made of wood, anyway.’ Luka was a little out of breath. ‘I think I’m growing old.’

‘Then hold what breath you can, and don’t babble,’ Myrddion replied drily. ‘The only other stone building is on the tor.’

‘Oh, shite! And it’s uphill all the way.’

Artorex and his companions had a head start on Gawayne, who was somewhere within the chapel, but the tor was distant and its keep was at the very top of the conical hill.

‘Do we ride?’ Gruffydd asked pragmatically. ‘Or do we run?’

‘We run,’ Artorex ordered. ‘By the time we return for the horses, Gawayne will have discovered that the sword must be on the tor. He may beat us to the keep anyway.’

Artorex’s assessment was correct. The four men had only climbed half the distance to the summit of the tor when a commotion broke out behind them. Gruffydd snatched a quick glance to their rear as his companions toiled onwards. He noted that Gawayne and three of his warriors had jostled their way out of the stone chapel and were now mounting their horses. With the best will in the world, the companions couldn’t outrun Gawayne in the race to reach the tower.

Artorex and Myrddion, breathing heavily from their exertions, were struggling up the last few yards of the hill when Gawayne swept past them with a whoop of boyish glee.

It’s all a game to him, Myrddion thought as his booted foot struggled to find purchase on the steep grassy slope. ‘So we shall be beaten - right at the end.’

Gawayne dismounted from his horse and entered the tower at a run, while his warriors drew their swords and blocked the narrow entrance.

Their orders had been given, and their faces were set and grim.

Breathing heavily, Artorex reached the summit with Myrddion only a few steps behind.

The tower was a simple finger of cyclopean stones, set without mortar, in the very centre of a perfectly conical hill. Looking down the smooth slopes, Myrddion doubted that nature had cast up the regular shape of the embankments.

The maiden, he thought irrelevantly. We stand on her breast and the tower is her nipple.

A church may have stood below the tor, with all the trappings of Christianity that surrounded it, but something older waited here - and Myrddion embraced its patient silence.

The game was now in the lap of the gods, but Artorex did not intend to appear foolish in front of mere cavalry soldiers. He stood before the entrance, fighting to regain his breath, until his companions finally joined him.

‘Step aside!’ Artorex ordered the three warriors as he stood before them. ‘I am the son of Uther Pendragon, and I am the Dux Bellorum. As your supreme commander, I give you a direct order on pain of death if you don’t obey me. Your naked blades insult the sanctity of this holy place.’

‘You’re too late, Lord Artorex. Our master will have the sword by now,’ one burly Celt gloated.

‘Early or late, I’ve ordered you to step aside.’ Artorex’s voice was calm, untroubled and implacable. His grey eyes were utterly flat.

Luka moved his sword in its sheath with an audible hiss of metal, for he knew that Artorex’s features had set into a deadly warning of impending force.

Gawayne’s bodyguard shifted nervously.

Then, as if his path was unobstructed, Artorex strode directly towards the low entrance to the keep of the tor.

As one, the warriors stood aside.

‘You! Gruffydd! You are my witness. Come!’

Why me? Gruffydd thought to himself, as he followed Artorex into the half-light of the tall stone finger of the keep.

Then he looked upwards.

‘Ye gods! Those stairs! I’ll never make it up there!’

But Artorex was bounding up the makeshift wooden steps with a boy’s enthusiasm. Gruffydd had no choice but to follow his lord, although his lungs were on fire and his calf muscles were already jelly within his skin.

Up and up they rose, higher and higher, and Gruffydd feared to look down; no rail would protect him from a plunge to the stone floor that lay in wait, far below, if he should fall.

Artorex was looking determinedly upwards as he ran, for he could hear cries of frustration and the muffled sound of Gawayne’s crude and imaginative swearing at the top of the stairway.

Artorex and Gruffydd emerged through a large, open hole in the flooring at the top of the steps. They found themselves in a circular space with a high, crudely constructed roof.

Gawayne looked over his shoulder at the two men as they clambered into the turret. His face was a study of mingled rage and chagrin.

Then, before they could join him inside the tower, he made one more leap towards the curving wall.

A tongue of metal protruded from the stone blocks of the tower.

It was the tang of a hilt-less sword.

Gawayne was a strong and well-built young man. Ygerne, Uther’s queen, was his grandmother and the fair Morgause was his mother. His father, King Lot, now run to fat with advancing age, had been a large and burly man, but neither Gawayne nor his father stood near to six feet tall.

The tang was at least one foot beyond the reach of Gawayne.

Gruffydd understood why Gawayne was so red-faced and angry. To leap as this young man had done, while stretching his fingers to their maximum reach, risked plunging to certain death through the hole in the wooden floor.

But Gawayne could not reach the tang that was so tantalizingly close. He could almost touch the blade, but it remained just beyond his reach. And there was no object in the tower that could help him to overcome his lack of height.

During his short life, Gawayne had heard tales of the murder of Gorlois. His Aunt Morgan had told him, again and again, of the unfairness of all that had befallen the family and that the crown truly belonged to the descendants of the Boar of Cornwall. The young man firmly believed that the finding of Uther’s sword was a blood debt that was owed to his kin.

But it remained a few inches beyond the reach of his questing fingers.

‘Step aside!’ Artorex ordered imperiously.

Gruffydd considered, irrelevantly, how Artorex could so easily have earned Gawayne’s life-long enmity had he added the words ‘little man’ to his command.

He recalled the welcome given to Artorex by Lucius.

‘You have grown tall,’ the priest had stated unsmilingly.

Gruffydd found himself grinning at the old man’s ingenuity. This priest was Roman through and through - their race had not ruled the world because they were fools.

Unlike Gawayne, Artorex had not been raised as the son of a tribal king. Nor did Artorex accept the strictures of the Roman way of life. For him, there was no glory in raising his right hand, almost hesitantly, and gripping the tang with his strong, work-hardened fingers.

‘This burden is not for you, Gawayne,’ he told the angry youth gently. ‘Truly, I wish it were yours to take - but it is not.’

And then Artorex pulled down with all his strength, feeling the unmortared steel slide out of its stone sheath with the long hiss of an angry dragonlet.

He held its chill length in both hands before him and gazed at his fate with regretful eyes.

Gruffydd knelt on the dusty floor.

‘My king!’ he stated reverently.

His thoughts were of the clever Lucius, a priest who had gambled the destiny of a kingdom on a man he had not seen since he was a three-day-old babe. The bishop had wagered everything on the chance that the son would inherit the stature of his father.

Gawayne also knelt on the accumulated dirt of the floor in full obeisance to Artorex.

‘My liege,’ he whispered.

But the young man’s face was twisted with the bitter taste of his failure.

Gripping the blade in his left hand, Artorex extended his right hand to assist Gawayne to his feet.

‘You will never have to kneel to me, cousin. I understand only too well how deep is your family’s hatred of my father and, perhaps, of me. I would feel the same rage were I in your shoes, for Uther used every means imaginable to take what he desired, without remorse or conscience. If you believe nothing else of me, you must accept that I hated him just as deeply as you or yours ever could.’

Gawayne looked suspiciously into Artorex’s unshuttered eyes as he stumbled to his feet. The grey irises were no longer flat and unreadable. Some trace of Morgan’s gifts told Gawayne that this man really did not want the kingship, but that he was harried by the demons of his blood towards a fate that would be neither fair nor kind.

Gawayne shuddered. ‘I believe you, my king, and I pledge to you that I will be your man from this moment on. I am yours to command.’

‘Then my first command to you is to remember, in those times when you are happiest with your friends and your family, that this burden will probably make me the loneliest man in the west.’ Artorex looked at the sword once more as if the weapon was a living, venomous serpent. ‘Come, nephew, we have work to commence.’

Turning to Myrddion’s spy, Artorex smiled conspiratorially.

‘And you also, Gruffydd. For you are now my sword bearer.’

With a casual disregard for the destiny he held in his hands, Artorex tossed the sword of Britain to Gruffydd, who barely caught it before it could tumble down the stairwell.

CHAPTER XXI

 

By the time Artorex’s band of men left Glastonbury, the Dux Bellorum was thoroughly irked by the unsought honours he was forced to accept. Myrddion, Luka and Lucius treated him as they always had, but every priest, monk and villager, not to mention Gawayne’s bodyguard, bowed so low whenever he approached them that he rarely had the opportunity to gaze upon their faces. Even before he left that hallowed place, Artorex was feeling solitary and uncomfortable.

He refused to partake in a celebratory banquet, preferring a simple meal with his fellows of bread, cheese, fine ham and fruit. Nor did he want the potent cider made by the monks in this sacred enclave. Rather, he preferred the exceptional water of Glastonbury, filtered in the earth through the ages until its purity was like balm to his angry, tortured soul. He had a dislike for the crown, and Lucius’s assurances that it had been cleansed by the waters of the pool didn’t appease him.

As usual, it was Myrddion who found a way to resolve Artorex’s stubbornness.

‘Do you have among your holy men a worker who is skilled in shaping precious metals?’ he asked Lucius.

‘Aye. The man who reforged the sword is a Jew who is knowledgeable in those arts.’

The men at Lucius’s table were shocked for, while the whole world knew that the Jews were the acknowledged masters of working with precious metals and gems, a Hebrew at a monastery such as Glastonbury was tantamount to a Roman king of the Saxons.