Hades Daughter (53 page)

Roads wove their sinuous way through all this abundance, their surfaces carefully levelled and gravelled for wheeled traffic.

It was a countryside richer than Brutus could ever have imagined. In the lands in which he’d been born and spent his life hitherto, the thinness of the soils
meant sparse fields and even sparser crops. He had never seen such an intensity of agriculture, nor such an easy wealth of food. Gods, if this land was not at its best, then how remarkable must it be when it was whole.

He rode his horse up level with Coel’s, and nodded at the surrounding countryside. “This is a good place.”

Coel and he had ridden in silence for two days after leaving Ecub’s village, and had then come to a silent agreement to clothe their disagreements with politeness. Since then their relationship had been cool, but not hostile.

Despite the thawing in his personal relationship with the man, Brutus kept a close and somewhat suspicious watch over Coel’s dealings with Cornelia. That there were none—Coel kept a great distance between himself and Cornelia—only increased Brutus’ suspicions. For the first part of the journey Cornelia and Coel had chatted as if they were old friends. Now they would have nothing to do with each other.

Something had happened, and Brutus wished he knew what it was.

“A good place?” Coel said, glancing at Brutus, then smiling to himself as he recognised Brutus’ admiration of the countryside. “This is the valley of the Llan,” he said, nodding forward to where Brutus could see a very faint wide expanse of silver, “but it is only the beginning of Llangarlia’s wealth. From here to the north, and to the south-east, stretches some of the most wondrous land in this island. Mag and…and Og have blessed us indeed.”

“The Llan is close?”

“We will reach it this evening.”

“And the Veiled Hills?”

“Are on the northern bank of the Llan. Whether you see them or not depends on the MagaLlan and Gormagog’s goodwill.”

“When will I see them?”

“When you are settled this evening, I will send word. Then you will wait.”

Brutus nodded, lapsing back into silence as he thought of the MagaLlan—Genvissa. He’d had little time to think of her in the past two weeks: the journey, Blangan’s death and then his suspicions about Coel and Cornelia had filled his mind.

But now…now she was so close. What she had promised him was so close…

The Game.

Power—beyond anything he’d dared dream of.

Immortality.

In the late afternoon they wound their way north-east along a road that ran parallel with the southern bank of the River Llan. The dwellings, granaries and barns were becoming ever more frequent, and Brutus noted that they were among the best-constructed buildings he had seen since he had begun his journey through Llangarlia.

Further south the houses had been made largely of wooden frames for clay-daubed wickerwork walls, with thatched or turf roofs. Here the houses, while still predominantly circular, had walls of stone, and sometimes roofs of slate. Many of them had walls and roofs high enough to suggest several levels inside. Some of the buildings had even been constructed in the wide marshes and tidal flats that formed the southern boundary of the Llan. Solidly assembled wooden walkways ran out to the buildings sitting on thick stilts above the waterline.

Boats, some quite large, were either tied to posts within the river or were pulled up on the mud flats, and Brutus guessed that they were used both for fishing and trade.

“How far are we from the sea here?” he asked Coel.

“A day’s sail, or row, if your men are strong,” he answered, “and the river remains navigable many days to the west. For so many generations we have been blessed. Now?” He shrugged, and Brutus shot him a dark look at this oblique reference to Blangan.

The river bent northward, the road they were travelling with it, leading into a large bustling town constructed just east of the mud flats and marshes that lined the river.

Coel waved the party to a halt. He pointed to the river to their left, and indicated a small, hilled island at the mouth of a smaller river that emptied into the Llan on its western bank.

“That is Thorney Island,” he said, “and it marks the spot where the Ty River meets the Llan. Thorney Island also marks the first fording spot across the Llan above its mouth. Several of the coastal roads merge at this point to cross the ford; once across the Llan they again divide up, heading north, west and south to the very edges of the land.”

Brutus nodded, understanding why the settlement was so large. Here all trade routes converged on the ford across the Llan at Thorney Island.
And
the Veiled Hills were close.

As if reading Brutus’ thoughts, Coel now pointed to the north. “Above the town, which we name Llanbank for the river, the Llan curves to the east. It is on the northern bank of the east–west stretch of the river that the Veiled Hills sit.”

He looked again at Thorney Island. “On the island rises Tot Hill, and that hill marks the very south-western point of the Veiled Hills.”

“It is sacred?” asked Hicetaon, who had ridden up on Coel’s other side.

“Oh, yes,” Coel responded, “Tot Hill is sacred. Now, come, I shall show you to your house…” He
grinned, looking over his shoulder to where Cornelia sat her horse, “which we shall call Cornelia’s House, as it is the custom of this land to name a household after the senior woman.”

He was rewarded with a polite smile, although it never reached Cornelia’s eyes.

The guesthouse to which Coel led them was large and substantial. Constructed of grey stone walls a pace thick and reaching well above their heads, it had a towering conical roof twice as high as the walls and densely thatched with new, sweet reeds. When they entered the single doorway it was to find that the floor was paved, and that there was a second level that could be used for extra sleeping space or for storage.

There were sleeping bays cut into the walls, with storage platforms above them and privacy drapes before them, and a bright fire burned in the central hearth, a pot already bubbling on its coals.

“You will be comfortable here,” said Coel. “In the morning, I will come for you.”

With that he was gone, and Brutus was left staring at the doorway, realising that not only was it their only way out of this substantial building, but that the long shadows outside revealed the presence of guards.

He doubted any of them would be allowed the freedom of Llanbank this night. He caught Hicetaon’s eye, and both men shrugged—they had expected little less.

Then one of the babies cried, and Brutus sighed, and turned to help the women settle before they tasted of the pot.

B
rutus woke early, and prepared himself as best he could. He washed thoroughly with water he heated at the fire, and oiled his hair so that it shone and snapped into tight black curls, then tied it securely behind his neck with a new thong. His body likewise he rubbed with oil until his skin gleamed and the engraved bands of kingship about his arms and legs sparkled. He scraped his teeth with a stick, then rubbed them with astringent herbs, finally rinsing out his mouth with fresh cold water.

He wanted to look his best. He wanted to be at his finest.

Today he would meet with Genvissa, the MagaLlan.

And the Gormagog, of course, but frankly Aerne was not the one raising the excitement in his belly to the point where he was unable to break his fast for fear of retching the food straight up again.

He rose from the fire, its light catching the warm hues of his naked body, and wrapped a fresh loincloth about his hips.

Then, from the small pack he’d brought all the way from Totnes camp, Brutus lifted a closely-woven white tunic. It was sleeveless and came only to mid-thigh so that his bands of kingship would not be hidden. About his waist Brutus belted a leather strap studded with gold leaf insets, and to that he attached his sheathed knife.

He would not wear a sword to the meeting.

About his neck Brutus clipped a wide torc of gold that had been beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and on his feet he slid a new and finely crafted pair of shoes.

When he was done, he looked up and saw that Cornelia, Aethylla, Hicetaon and the two warriors were all awake, and variously propped up on elbows or sitting in their bed spaces, watching him.

“Will you win us a land today, Brutus?” Hicetaon asked. Beside him lay Aethylla, who had quietly taken to sharing Hicetaon’s blankets on the final leg of the journey north. She had a baby to each of her breasts, and watched Brutus with wide, appreciative eyes.

“This land is already ours,” Brutus said. “It is only that the Llangarlians have yet to realise it.”

Then, with a nod for Cornelia, Brutus grabbed his cloak and strode through the door.

Coel was waiting outside for him.

“You think to dazzle the MagaLlan and the Gormagog with that finery?” he said.

“I merely think to show myself as I am,” Brutus said, making Coel bark with laughter.

“You are a fine king, to be sure,” he said, “all a-glittering and a-gleaming.”

Brutus’ face stilled, then he pushed past Coel and mounted his horse.

Coel led the way on his horse, guiding Brutus through Llanbank’s wide streets towards the ford on the Llan. The morning was sweet and soft, people only just stirring, and what noise and movement there was came from the water birds on the riverside marshes, rising to begin their day’s feasting amid the river’s bounty.

Coel led Brutus along a raised and smoothly graded trackway that wound through the wide mud flats and
marshes abutting the river. There were deep ditches on either side to drain away the marsh water, and Brutus wondered at the effort that must have gone into constructing such a causeway.

After some minutes the causeway led to the river itself, and here Brutus could see that the work had continued into and across the river, for the ford was a wide gravelled path under water that would reach to a man’s knees.

“We can only cross at low tide,” Coel explained as their horses splashed into the ford. “At high tide the Llan is the province of ships and fishes only.”

“And when the river floods?” Brutus asked. Most of the surrounding land was so low that he imagined it was at severe risk of flooding.

In answer, Coel grimaced. “We pray to Mag and Og to keep the river peaceful,” he said.

“And do they listen to your prayers?”

“Some years,” Coel said, and pushed his horse forward so that further conversation was impossible.

Brutus turned his attention to the far bank of the Llan, still some distance away. He could clearly see Thorney Island, rosy in the dawn light. It sat squarely in the mouth of the Ty River which had to split into two in order to flow around the island and into the Llan.

Thorney Island was not particularly large, rising from its spot at the junction of the two rivers to a central mound some eighty paces high. Much of the island, particularly about its shoreline, was thick with thorn bushes and beds of reed, and Brutus grinned to himself as he imagined the first men who dared to climb the island trying to push their way through that natural barrier—no wonder the name.

The central mound, Tot Hill, was clear of any shrubs and trees, and it boasted a large rectangular stone building on its southern slope that looked over the
river and ford. At the very summit stood what appeared to be either an altar or the base of a pyre…or perhaps both.

Brutus had caught up with Coel now, and he nodded at the buildings. “The MagaLlan and the Gormagog live there?”

“No,” said Coel. “They live elsewhere. This is merely where they have chosen to meet with you.”

“But that building is very well constructed, and very large,” said Brutus. “It must be important.”

Coel sighed. “The island is used as a place of assembly,” he said. “The building houses a great meeting chamber.”

Brutus nodded; this must be the Assembly House Coel had mentioned on their journey north. He assumed that he would meet with the MagaLlan and the Gormagog in this building, but when Coel led the way from the river on to the island—fortunately through a path cut through the thorn bushes and reeds—he bypassed the turnoff towards the great stone building, and instead rode for the very summit itself.

Coel pulled his horse to a halt some twenty paces from the top, then slid to the ground, indicating Brutus should do the same.

“I will hold your horse,” he said to Brutus. “You are to go to the summit. Meet me below once you’ve done.”

When Brutus reached the summit there was no one and no thing there save the large raised platform of stone. He climbed on to the platform—the stones were creamy and pitted with age but still fitted together closely enough to form a completely flat surface—and looked about the surrounding countryside.

Llanbank spread out directly to his east across the river. Thick twists of smoke rose from the dwellings as fires were rekindled, children darted out from
doorways and between the legs of those adults already out, and geese cackled and flapped their wings as they rose from their slumber and contemplated what mischief they might make during the day.

To the south, across the great bend in the river as the Llan turned westwards, fields spread as far as Brutus could see. Along one droveway close to the Llan’s marshes a shepherd drove a flock of wiry, pale brown sheep towards their morning’s grazing, a small black and tan dog barking at their heels.

To the west, more of the same marshes and fields, the riches of Llangarlia spreading either side of the great silvery expanse of the Llan. Where the ford across the Llan joined the western riverbank of the Llan, three roads forked out, each to their separate destinations. One wound to the north, one to the south, and one to the south-west.

Finally, Brutus turned to the north and north-east, the northern banks of the Llan, where stretched the Veiled Hills.

Nothing. Nothing save mist and mystery. Where the Llan was bathed in clear early morning light elsewhere, in its northern and north-eastern reaches it was lost in dense, ivory fog.