The Bloody Cup (13 page)

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Taliesin replied, his clear young eyes shadowed with confusion.

Then, with a boyish laugh, Artor tossed his wine cup over his shoulder and reminded his guests of the night’s purpose.

‘Come, my friends. We’ll light the fires and cleanse our souls for the beginning of another new year - a year when we shall be forgiven for all our faults.’

‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’ the assembled personages called. ‘For the new year has come.’

The pyre of wood was soaked in oil and pitch, so it caught fire quickly when the king and queen thrust torches into its base. Women threw holly berries and sweet garlands of hoarded, dried flowers into its blazing maw, while still more citizens fed its flaming energy with the sweetness of dried apples, fine cloth and cups of honeyed wine.

Men, women and children danced about the dozens of Samhein fires that turned the midnight darkness of Cadbury into a tapestry of russet, gold and scarlet. Fire etched faces into fine chiaroscuro masks set against a backdrop of light-reflecting snow. Voices sang and feet capered. Lovers kissed and old women spoke of grandchildren and asked for fecundity, good crops and a fine spring flood to provide feed for the newly born lambs and calves.

The world made merry as the king danced with his wife, for they were the servants of the renewal of all growing things.

‘What a farce!’ Modred whispered maliciously to one of his companions. ‘An old man and a barren woman dance to bring rebirth to the land. But, look. Their hands barely touch each other.’

Modred’s wicked words carried to the ears of the twins. Both men ceased to clap and laugh, and Balyn took a step towards Modred’s languid shadow.

‘I take offence at what you say, Modred. Your comments could be construed as treason when you voice such doom against the king and queen.’

‘Horseshit, boy! Wenhaver’s no better than she should be and Artor supports her fictions. Those details I remark on are common knowledge, both within and beyond the court. If they weren’t so amusing, they’d make me ill.’

Modred’s carefully ambiguous use of
they
was totally lost on Balyn.

‘I advise you to take care, Brigante. By all reports, most of your kin were a murderous, cowardly gaggle of ambitious geese. I predict that a day will come when Artor separates your head from your neck, as he did for the other traitors within your tribe.’

Silently, Balan stood his ground on the frozen earth, leaving his brother to voice their shared disgust.

Galahad had heard the heated exchange and didn’t hesitate to add his own warnings.

‘Was your mother really a witch, Modred? Should you be sent to the fire to die, as was the custom of the pagans with their enemies in the days before Jesus saved these lands for the Holy Church?’

‘You’re nothing but a pious stripling, nephew.’ Modred retorted. ‘And you ought to know a witch when you see one, for our family has always practised the dark arts.’

‘Silence!’ Odin hissed. ‘I don’t fear the Beltane fires, so I’ll gladly cut your throat if you say another word against my lord and master.’

Modred stepped back. He was justifiably nervous of this huge Jutlander, yet he was unwilling to relinquish his part in the game that these foolish young men were playing with him. He was forgetting that there was very little difference in their respective ages.

‘Oh, isn’t discord lovely? This court is a veritable treasure house of joy and happiness.’

Then Modred slipped away into the darkness, but his shadow lingered like a miasma of pestilence over the shoulders of the young warriors.

Artor strode towards them out of a fiery rain of falling embers and sparks.

‘Dance, lads! Find girls to kiss and friendly arms to hold you, for Samhein comes but once a year.’

Shame-faced and uneasy, the young men moved away into the laughing throng.

‘The Brigante king will have your head, Artor.’ Odin spoke without rancour. ‘Even now, he sets us all against each other. Let me kill him and have done.’

‘I cannot kill the scion of Luka - I will not!’ Artor smiled, and the reflection of the fire danced in his pupils. ‘At least, not until he goes a step too far. So you may keep your axe blade sharp in anticipation of any change in circumstances.’

The night was full of laughter, wine and muffled figures. Within the king’s house, even servants were as noble as lords on this night, and the corridors echoed with the raucous noise of revelry.

Eventually, Artor escaped to the peace of his apartments, where Taliesin waited patiently at the ironclad door, his harp cradled in its nest of sheep’s wool.

‘My lord, I bear a private message to you from my mother. I don’t know what her greeting means and she told me that she doesn’t understand it either. She sends warning of a deadly peril.’ The young man was embarrassed by the vagueness of his message. ‘She asked me to tell you that the Bloody Cup has come.’

‘The Bloody Cup?’ Artor repeated. ‘Shite, boy, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why should I fear any cup, bloody or otherwise?’

Taliesin shrugged expressively. ‘She hears the whispers on the wind and dreams night after night of portents of evil. I sometimes wonder if her beliefs are simply the foolishness of an ageing woman, but I don’t believe she’s wrong, for I can smell carrion on the air.’

‘In the words of old Targo, who was a true friend to your father, only a fool ignores any edge he’s given, no matter how improbable it seems.’

Taliesin smiled gratefully. Across the small space, he saw the king’s shadow loom monstrously like some hunched beast. He shivered.

‘You may sleep here in the antechamber of my rooms, if you wish,’ Artor added, thinking the boy might be feeling the chill of the winter night. ‘You have my thanks, Taliesin.’

‘The stables are good enough for me, my lord. The thaw will soon come and Rhiannon will weep for the open ground. I’ll trouble you no more.’

Beyond his window, Artor watched impassively as the Samhein fires collapsed inward into dirty stains on the pristine snow.

CHAPTER VI

THE ENEMY AT THE DOOR

Spring came with a rush.

Myrddion Merlinus would have told his king, had he not been cold ash, that kingdoms are rarely lost in sudden, bloody, power struggles. The rot begins from within but is nurtured from without. The old tree cracks and warps with disease until a strong wind comes and blows it down. Even though the tree is riven, it still struggles to bear fruit in a last, poignant throw at immortality. The sweetest apples grow on the dying branches, but they are pitifully few and are attacked by the small pests that prey on new, bursting growth. Then, when the end eventually comes, the ripe apple proves to be only healthy, succulent skin that encloses bruised, corrupted and worm-eaten flesh.

And so Cadbury festered.

Whatever her fears for her safety, Wenhaver could not restrain a nature that had deepened and narrowed in its channel of vanity and self-aggrandizement over the decades. Mindful of Artor’s demands, she avoided Gawayne but turned her still brilliant eyes upon that ardent youth whose impetuous nature made him easy meat.

Balyn. The twin who looked most like the young Artor.

She was never so foolish as to lower herself in his estimation by seducing him. Balyn’s worship was a sweet anodyne to Artor’s scorn and coldness. The young man’s blood and allegiances burned hot, while Artor’s passions were dormant, so she preened herself in the warmth of Balyn’s regard and deluded herself that she was still young.

‘You’re making a goose of yourself, brother’, Balan told Balyn bluntly, after he had spent several hours dancing attendance on Wenhaver’s whims. ‘She’s near as old as our mother.’

Balyn was horrified. With her working robes and tousled hair, Anna looked every day of her years, for she spared herself little time for anything but clean, warm water and the occasional use of precious oils on a holiday feast. Her wildly curling hair, now liberally sprinkled with white, was proud testimony to five living births and three stillborn children and, if her face bore telltale wrinkles around her eyes, in the long creases that ran to her mouth and in the sagging flesh of her neck, then Anna paid no mind to them.

By comparison, Wenhaver could never be old.

‘Age has nothing to do with grace and youthfulness, dolt, and Queen Wenhaver is eternally gay and feminine. She knows how to make me laugh, and she’s no sober-sides like you and Mother.’

Balan grunted in exasperation, for his brother’s brows were glowering with the familiar, mutinous warnings of a prolonged temper tantrum.

‘You don’t understand how starved the queen is for amusing company and affection. She’s younger than the king by many years and he has no interest in dancing, conversation or games of pleasure. She’s lonely!’

‘You can be such a birdbrain, Balyn. Did you never ask yourself why the king is too busy to dance attendance on the queen? He hasn’t held the kingdom together for so many years because he plays at dice or amuses himself with idle gossip. He asks little of Queen Wenhaver but fealty, which many people say she has not been prepared to give. No, I won’t make slurs against the queen’s character, but you should watch and listen before you’re seduced by superficial appearance. If our king seems harsh and dour, then perhaps he has good reason to be so.’

Balyn flushed hotly. Balan was always the more measured and serious of the twins, although Balyn possessed the edge in physical skills. To Balyn, it seemed that his whole life he had been told to ‘think matters out like your brother’, so rancour now rose in him like bile.

‘You only have to look at the personal guard of the king,’ Balyn complained. ‘Don’t you see the resemblances? Modred says that Artor gets bastards on lowly women and then recruits them into his guard to protect his back. If Modred is correct, the queen is much wronged.’

The brothers stood at the very edge of the citadel. A stiff breeze from the east blew their amber and dark brown hair into disarray as the measured grey eyes of Balan met the hot grey eyes of Balyn.

Balan felt his own slow anger begin to stir. ‘Yet, brother, the queen has no child. And you must ask yourself why, if what Modred says is true, our king would turn to servant women in the first place? Then look in your silver mirror and observe your reflection and, afterwards, tell me what you see.’

Balan almost heard the two edges of the universe click together into a perfect, curved oval and the ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble and crack as if the foundations of Cadbury were breaking. He knew he had made a foolish and dangerous statement through his irritation, so he raised one hand to placate his brother. But Balyn cut him off.

‘You impugn the honour of our mother with this talk. How dare you, Balan? How dare you suggest that we’re the seeds of a despot? How
could
you? Your accusation strikes at yourself as much as at me.’

Balan threw his arms round his twin’s stiff form, to avoid seeing the sudden wound that had appeared in his brother’s eyes.

‘No!’ he whispered urgently in his brother’s ear. ‘No! You don’t understand. Comac is surely our father! But I have heard rumours that Mother could be the High King’s sister. Sometimes, matters are not as they appear, and only a fool would allow himself to be manipulated by gossip that could cause him harm. You aren’t Artor’s son, and nor am I. But look in the mirror, brother, and think carefully before you speak rashly. If we are Artor’s kin, we are closer in blood to him than Modred is, so we should understand why Modred might want us to fall into conflict with the king. The Brigante king makes no secret of his blood claim to the throne. Who would have the people’s approval as heir to Artor’s throne? Modred, or you?’

In his distress, Balyn had scarcely heard a word of his brother’s explanation. His agitated brain was comparing their features with the face of the High King. He pulled himself out of his brother’s arms, violently thrusting Balan away.

‘Careful, Balyn. Mother would be upset if we finally managed to kill each other,’ Balan attempted to joke. But Balyn turned his stormy face away from his brother’s pleading eyes and ran towards the stables.

‘Hades should stopper your stupid mouth,’ Balan admonished himself. ‘And Hades should devour Modred, Wenhaver and all those rats that cluster at the feet of the High King if there is any justice in this world.’

Miles away from Cadbury, armed men were about to disturb the peace of holy Glastonbury. For centuries, no brigand or criminal had dared to seek easy pickings within the confines of its abbey or its surrounds, or to place impious feet on its flagstones.

Supposedly built by Josephus, the church was pitifully small and its walls lurched in different directions as its aged, wooden supports rotted in the earth. The tower, with its rough stone construction, was stronger and more impressive, but Glastonbury had never depended on the defensive strength of its walls for survival. Until now, holiness had kept its precincts safe.

Inside the church, narrow apertures allowed filtered light to enter the building, and the simple stone flagging, installed long after the church was raised, was spotless from scrubbing and sanctity. The altar was simple but the cross that stood upon it was made of purest gold. Woollen hangings warmed the little structure and covered the stained and darkened walls. Rough benches, laid out in neat rows, served to seat the brothers, and these could, if needed, be pushed against the wall to provide more space.

The priests and lay brothers slept in separate wooden dormitories with semi-attached kitchens. The order of this green enclave was restful, because the original builders had used a careful plan for the whole settlement. Of course, the passage of many centuries had welcomed growth and unplanned structures were added at need, so that Glastonbury’s precinct had charm as well as order. Infirmaries, apothecaries, stables, forges, accommodation for travellers and even latrines surrounded the small, unpretentious church at its centre.

Murder was about to come to this ancient seat of power and religious piety.

The afternoon was cold but clear, so that sound carried as the attacking warriors fell upon the outbuildings like the sudden gale that presages a storm. The priests and brothers had no choice other than to flee, for they were forbidden by their faith to shed blood. Several lay brothers, however, attempted to slow the advance of the six determined invaders. But, as these courageous farmers were unarmed except for hoes and rakes, they were quickly dispatched by cold iron.